Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule 9780520969841

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface
Conventions
Conversions
Qing Reigns
Introduction
1. “A Time of Pure Yin”: Forging the Seventeenth–Century Consensus on the Nature of Ming Eunuch Power
2. The Shunzhi Emperor and His Eunuchs: Echoes of the Ming
3. “To Guard against Their Subtle Encroachments”: The Kangxi Emperor’s Regulation of Rank–and–File Eunuchs
4. The Influence of Eunuchs in Kangxi’s Inner Circle
5. Eunuch Loyalties in the Yongzheng Emperor’s Troubled Succession
6. Yongzheng’s Innovative Rules for Regulating Eunuchs
7. The Qianlong Emperor: Shifting the Arc of History
8. Qianlong’s Flawed System of Oversight
9. The World Created by Qianlong and His Eunuchs
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Glossary-Index

Citation preview

Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Sue Tsao Endowment Fund in Chinese Studies.

Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule

Norman A. Kutcher

UNIVERSIT Y OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2018 by Norman A. Kutcher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kutcher, Norman Alan, author. Title: Eunuch and emperor in the great age of Qing rule / Norman A. Kutcher. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: lccn 2018002050 (print) | lccn 2018005557 (ebook) | isbn 9780520969841 (E-Pub) | isbn 9780520297524 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Eunuchs—China—History. | China—History—Qing dynasty, 1644–1912. | China—Kings and rulers. Classification: lcc hq449 (ebook) | lcc hq449 .k88 2018 (print) | ddc 951/.03—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002050

Manufactured in the United States of America 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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For Richard

contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Conventions Conversions Qing Reigns Introduction

ix xi xv xxi xxii xxiii 1

1. “A Time of Pure Yin”: Forging the Seventeenth–Century Consensus on the Nature of Ming Eunuch Power

27

2. The Shunzhi Emperor and His Eunuchs: Echoes of the Ming

43

3. “To Guard against Their Subtle Encroachments”: The Kangxi Emperor’s Regulation of Rank–and–File Eunuchs

68

4. The Influence of Eunuchs in Kangxi’s Inner Circle

83

5. Eunuch Loyalties in the Yongzheng Emperor’s Troubled Succession

108

6. Yongzheng’s Innovative Rules for Regulating Eunuchs

125

7. The Qianlong Emperor: Shifting the Arc of History

144

8. Qianlong’s Flawed System of Oversight

173

9. The World Created by Qianlong and His Eunuchs

199

Conclusion

227

Notes Selected Bibliography Glossary-Index

237 289 301

illustrations

F IG U R E S

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Eunuchs outside a palace building 14 Eunuchs scuffle with police after their eviction from the Forbidden City Group of former palace eunuchs at Gang Tie temple 15 Former palace eunuchs, c. 1933–1946 16 Statue of Gang Tie 18 Li Yu’s order, 1702 94 Steles at Dinghui Si 102 Wei Zhu’s gilded prison, Tuancheng 118 Results of annual census of eunuchs, 1747–1806 168 MAPS

1. Beijing and its environs xxiv 2. The Forbidden City xxv

ix

14

acknowled gments

My joy in being able to thank the many individuals who provided essential support on this project is tempered only by my fear of omitting the names of some. For this, I apologize in advance. My first thanks goes to the men and women of the Users Services Division of the First Historical Archives of China, several of whom I have known since my very first days as a graduate student researcher. In particular, I would like to thank Zhu Shuyuan, Liu Ruofang, Yang Xinxin, Li Jing, Ge Huiying, and Wang Jinlong. Several members of the archives staff kindly translated documents from Manchu, including Liu Ruofang, Li Baowen, and Qu Liusheng. My admiration for, and debt to, this archive and its personnel cannot be overstated. The American Council of Learned Societies provided funding for the year in Beijing during which I gathered many of the archival sources used in this book. I thank my hosts at the Qing History Institute at Renmin University. During that year I also got to know Maram Epstein, Kojiro Taguchi, and Lawrence Zhang, who offered friendship and scholarly guidance. I made successive trips to the archives over five years, summers and, occasionally winters, and met many of the scholars who make Qing history such a lively and engaging undertaking. To them I give my heartfelt thanks. Following the trail of eunuchs also led me outside Beijing. In May of 2008 I traveled the counties south of the capital where most eunuchs were born. I visited local history offices and met many historians whose knowledge of the history of their counties’ eunuchs was truly profound. In particular, I would like to thank Li Yuchuan, retired from the Dacheng local history office, who shared extraordinary stories of his county’s eunuchs. Quite by accident I met the descendants of the famous eunuch Li Lianying. I thank them for their gracious hospitality, and for the xi

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impromptu visits they organized to the family tombs, and to Li’s village. In August of 2010 I was able to spend two weeks at the Heilongjiang Provincial Archives in Harbin. This short visit gave me the evidence I needed to prove that even in exile, eunuchs continued to work the system. I thank the staff of the archives there for their help and good cheer. My profound thanks go to the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, whose grant of a Membership allowed me to spend academic year 2010–11 fully engaged in research and writing. The extraordinary atmosphere of the Institute gave me the courage and time to expand what was to be a book on eunuchs in the Qianlong period into a work that covered the earlier Qing reigns as well. I offer my deepest thanks to Nicola Di Cosmo, my generous host and mentor at the Institute, as well as to the other East Asianists in residence that year: Micah Muscolino, Juhn Ahn, John Herman, and Kirill Solonin. Padma Kaimal, Andrew Rotter, Thomas Kühne, Gabriel Gorodetsky, Laurie Green, and James Fabris-Green all pushed me to think deeper about my project during that formative year. The ideas that eventually culminated in this book were presented at a variety of venues: Peking University (my thanks to Yang Liwen, Luo Zhitian, Mao Haijian, and Niu Dayong), Yale University (at a conference in honor of the career of my adviser Jonathan Spence, to whom great thanks are due, along with the other tongxue who organized and participated in that event), Harvard University (with special thanks to Mark Elliott and James Robson), Wesleyan University (with special thanks to my undergraduate mentor Vera Schwarcz, who along with other beloved undergraduate teachers Clarence Walker and Irene Eber launched me on my journey into academia). Several mentors in the field were extraordinarily generous in responding to requests for assistance. I thank Pamela Kyle Crossley, Sherman Cochran, Susan Naquin, Beatrice Bartlett, and Susan Mann. Matthew Sommer and an anonymous reader for the University of California Press read the first version of the manuscript (which was almost a third longer) with generosity, care, and alacrity, and provided many useful suggestions. Outside the China field, colleagues and friends provided inspiration and emotional support. I thank Ethan Pollock, Karin Rosemblatt, and Helmut Walser Smith. Several institutions served as homes away from home, and I gratefully acknowledge their hospitality. I thank Cornell University and the Kroch Library, the University of Texas at El Paso (and Michael Topp), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library (and especially Hsi-chu Bolick), and the Princeton University Asia Library (and especially Martin Heijdra). My debts at Syracuse University are many. I thank the staff of our interlibrary loan office, who are among the unsung heroes of the university. My deans were generous in permitting me the leave time needed to finish a book of this scope. My colleagues in the Department of History listened eagerly to the ideas presented

acknowledgments

xiii

here (whether one-on-one or in seminars) and made many helpful suggestions. I could easily list the names of the whole faculty, but will instead just single out for their forbearance Craige Champion, Andrew Wender Cohen, Albrecht Diem, George Kallander, Osamah Khalil, Chris R. Kyle, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, and Gladys McCormick. Before his retirement and after, Frederick Marquardt has been a constant intellectual interlocutor as I have sought to disentangle the threads of my argument. His careful reading of the manuscript helped me tighten the argument substantially. My debt to him since my arrival at Syracuse in the 1990s is great. As I was finishing up the first draft of the manuscript I was fortunate enough to receive a fellowship from the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, where I was Luce Foundation Senior Fellow. I thank my fellow China scholars in residence that year: Peter Carroll, Judith Farquahar, and James Hevia. April Masten, Martin Berger, Nancy Cott, Beatrice Longueneusse, Colleen Lye, David Pickell, Jane Newman, Neslihan Senocak, Javier Villa-Flores, though working in fields far from mine, became close colleagues. I gratefully acknowledge the help of the NHC staff, especially Brooke Andrade, Head of Libraries, who tracked down very elusive sources. Karen Carroll at the NHC (now an independent copy editor) worked through the rough draft with speed and certainty. My special thanks go to Robert Newman, who as the Center’s director fostered a welcoming environment that kept alive in the fellows the bigger significance of the humanities in our work. Graduate students at Syracuse have helped immensely in this project as research assistants. I thank Qiufang Yi, Hua Liu, Li Zhou, Lei Zhang, Lex Jing Lu, Jing Liu, Lei Duan, and Erqi Cheng. Giovanna Urist checked my translations from the Italian. Ph.D. students from my early days, particularly Edward Qingjia Wang, Unryu Suganuma, Fei-wen Liu and Wei-zen Lin have remained friends and supportive colleagues in the field. I thank the many people at the University of California Press for their help and attention to this project. Reed Malcolm, my editor, was supportive from the beginning, and with his assistants Zuha Kahn and Bradley Depew provided essential help. My profound thanks also to my project editor, Dore Brown, my gifted copy editor, Carl Walesa, and designer Lia Tjandra, who provided the exquisite cover design. For their help in the final push to get the manuscript out the door, I thank Mary Child and Nicholas Jackson. I’m grateful to my friends, who spent many years fascinated by my tales of eunuchs. When they began to tire of those stories I also knew that this book would have to be brought to a conclusion. I thank Katie Reed and the late Geoffrey O. Seltzer, Kathleen Cardone and Bruce Neugebauer, Vivian May and Beth Ferri, Jim Crawford, Floyd Johnson, Peter Couvares, Xueyi Chen, Jeehee Hong, Hector Parada, Elise Devido, Julie Gozan and Thomas Keck, Terry and Ellen Lautz, Deborah Pellow and the late David Cole, Mark Saba, Baiquan Tan, Henry Costa, Edwin Van Bibber-Orr, Yang Tao and Xia Lan, Yang Shuyu, Matthieu Van Der Meer,

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acknowledgments

Justin Long and Jerry Fletcher, Philip Brewster, Matt Lazare, Andrew Velazquez and Argie Lopez, and Jon and Kara Peet. To my family—and especially to my beloved sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephew and their spouses, great-nieces and great-nephews, and to the Wallachs, I say thank you for your love and understanding. My father, Max B. Kutcher, was a powerful source of inspiration during most of the years I worked on this book, but unfortunately did not live to see its publication. He and my mother, Gertrude, live on in my heart. Publication of this book coincides with my thirtieth anniversary with my partner (now spouse) Richard Wallach. It is to him that this book is lovingly dedicated. N.A.K. October 15, 2017

preface

My scholarly interest in eunuchs began when I was a new graduate student in Chinese history at Yale. It was my Classical Chinese teacher, Mrs. Monica Yü, who quickly grasped my personality and suggested that to be happy in my research I would need to pursue an out-of-the ordinary topic. What precisely that would be was yet to be discovered, but when I learned that Peter Gay would be offering his seminar in psychohistory the following semester, I jumped at the chance to explore a new approach to history. Once I began reading the works of Freud, the concept of castration in China practically suggested itself. In Peter’s seminar I met an energetic group of fledgling historians, all studying different times and places. Emboldened by my own marginal knowledge of classical Chinese at the time, I sought to make a sweeping, psychoanalytic connection between the concept of castration, as embodied in the Chinese language, and political power in China. My teachers of Chinese history—Jonathan Spence, Ying-shih Yü, Beatrice S. Bartlett, and Emily Honig—had the compassion not to summarily quash my juvenile ideas. I do remember that it was Jonathan who, in tones evoking a father’s telling his son the facts of life, explained that castration in China entailed removal of both testicles and penis. He said simply, and in his quiet British accent, “They cut it all off, you know.” Beatrice Bartlett, for her part, wisely suggested the topic might be too dangerous for a Ph.D. dissertation. Indeed, it is easy to forget how quickly times have changed, but even by 1991, when I finished my thesis, hiring committees were often conservative and reluctant to consider topics that they considered risqué. Certainly, in those days my topic would not have gone over well during my research year in China, where scholars tended to be conservative and xv

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unwilling to confront this embarrassing part of Chinese history. (To this day, an archivist friend refers to my project as dealing with xiamian de shiqing—“downthere things.”) I thus turned to other subjects, setting aside my work on eunuchs, but somehow never losing interest in the topic. Then in the early 2000s, when I was in the Qing archives in Beijing, I stumbled on some fascinating documents. The Beijing archives, it should be explained, comprise the government documents from China’s last dynasty, the Qing (1644–1911), most of them written by career bureaucrats. Although historians have used these documents to write important and exciting history, the sources themselves are generally devoid of expressions of emotions. While looking through the archives of the Imperial Household Department, I came across a series of what appeared to be legal cases. Within the cases were confessions of eunuchs who had committed petty crimes, or run away from the palace. The confessions themselves were extraordinarily moving. Written in the first person, and in language very close to spoken Chinese, they detailed the sad, hard lives that eunuchs endured. Here were men telling of the poverty that had driven them to castration, of beatings they had gotten or feared getting from their supervisors, of aging parents they wanted to visit again before they died. I remember stories so moving that I felt they might bring me to tears, as I sat in those cold, uncomfortable library chairs. I was struck at how mundane their lives could be, even as they worked in and around the center of power, and in China’s most sumptuous palaces. Finding these documents pulled me back to the subject of eunuchs. Once I had read a great number of eunuch confessions, however, the project became more complicated. Many of the stories eunuchs told, I began to realize, were completely formulaic: the same stories recurred, often even written with exactly the same words. I also began to notice, however, that in the interstices between the oft-repeated stories were useful details. I started collecting these case files, in part for the stories they told, but even more so for the details that occasionally slipped through the rote presentation to reveal important facts about palace life. I began to focus carefully on stories that deviated from the formula. Finally, I began to hope that I could understand eunuchs’ lives in the palace by patiently reconstructing them from the small details that emerged from hundreds of such case files—and from the cases that deviated from the formulaic. This book is my attempt at such a study, although a range of other sources have contributed as well: the engraved stele that marked eunuch graves, the miscellanies published on everyday life in the capital, and a variety of other historical records, some rare, and some of which are the stock-in-trade of Qing historians. These taught me an immense amount also, as did visits to the counties south of Beijing, from which most eunuchs hailed, and the counties in the northeast (the former Manchu homeland), to which eunuchs who committed petty crimes were exiled.

preface

xvii

The eunuch cases that I found dated mostly from the eighteenth century, and from the reign of the Qianlong emperor in particular (1736–1795), when the system that created these cases matured. They allowed me to see this ruler in a new light, because historians have largely taken his pronouncements on palace management as actual depictions of his household ruling style. They have also confused his occasional and ostentatious moments of punctilious enforcement with the much more lenient day-to-day ways in which he ran the palace. The Qing reigns that predated Qianlong also captured my interest. These reigns, like his, were supposed to be periods in which eunuchs, who were considered a traditional scourge and danger to government, were finally well controlled following the debacle of the Ming fall, which had been hastened by the actions of corrupt eunuchs and the emperors who mistakenly empowered them. As I began to study eunuchs in the eighteenth century and the century before it, I discovered evidence that eunuchs were anything but well controlled. They were all too much like the “fire under tinder” that worried the early Qing writer Huang Zongxi. Rather than being very much under heel, they were adapting to rules in ways that showed considerable ingenuity and flexibility. Perhaps just as important, I learned two things about eunuchs: First, I learned that it would be impossible to generalize about eunuch identity, or even say much about what it meant to be a eunuch. These men shared the experience of what was doubtless a horrifying procedure. It is perhaps our own shock and revulsion at “cutting it all off ” that leads us to think they were somehow all made the same by it. Or perhaps we imagine that the hormonal changes accompanying castration would lead to the creation of a set of shared characteristics. Compounding the misconception was the fact that those who lived contemporaneously with eunuchs also tended to generalize, assuming that all eunuchs were somehow the same. Instead, I have been struck by the tremendous diversity of eunuchs. These were men who differed from one another as much as any humans do. There is no greater proof of the diversity of eunuchs than the ease with which many of them escaped the palace and lived undetected among the general populace. In one poignant case, a eunuch wrote in his confession that although he could pass freely as a normal man while on the outside, he lived in fear of using the toilet, lest other men learn that he was a eunuch. Eunuchs’ ability to pass was not unqualified. It sometimes had to do with their biology—at which time in life they were castrated (pre- or post-puberty), and how old they were at the time they sought to pass. There were eunuchs who spent many years on the outside unnoticed. Biology was important, but it was not their destiny. Second, I discovered that there were important changes in how eunuchs were governed over the course of the early to mid-Qing reigns. It was exploring these changes, and how eunuchs responded to them, that became this work’s chief scholarly contribution. I wanted to tell eunuchs’ stories, but I also came to see that these

xviii

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stories were a lens through which I could see Qing rulership in new ways. This was because of the gap between how Qing rulers characterized their rule in public pronouncements, and the reality of that rule as evident in the eunuch case files. To explain, the most basic tools of the Qing historian were, for many years, published sources, chiefly the Veritable Records, which were court diaries compiled at the conclusion of each reign; and the Collected Qing Regulations, compiled at regular intervals over the dynasty. In times past, these two sources were the mainstay of research in the field. Graduate students would spend long hours scanning the semipunctuated Veritable Records, looking for evidence related to their projects. For those interested in the imperial household, an important additional source was A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, compiled at the order of the Qianlong emperor, which figures centrally in this book. In the 1970s and ’80s, when the Qing archives opened in earnest, scholars began to supplement these published sources with archival documents—which allowed a behind-the-scenes look at the Qing bureaucracy in action. Published sources such as the Veritable Records and the Collected Qing Regulations became highly user-friendly once they were digitized and completely punctuated, even as they became less important with the rise of archival sources. The subject of eunuchs offers a fascinating perspective on Qing rulership when archival and other new sources are used not to supplement the traditional sources, but rather as evidence of the tension between the published sources and actual practice. Though the published sources were compiled from archival documents—in fact, they contain reprinted archival documents—they were compiled selectively to craft a particular vision of Qing rulership. To fully appreciate the gap between that presentation and the reality is to gauge the strange hypocrisies of Qing rulership. The reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong—three of China’s most famous emperors—look very different when viewed from the standpoint of how these men actually—rather than how they claimed to—rule over their eunuchs. Given how my interests evolved, then, it will not surprise my reader that this book is remarkably nonabstract. There is little if any theoretical discussion of castration. I disappoint my former graduate-student self, for example, by failing to analyze the fact that eunuchs used the term jingshen—literally, “to purify the body”—as a euphemism for castration. Indeed, aside from some gruesome narratives of self-castration that appear in chapter 9, discussion of castration is noticeably absent. Many tantalizing arguments have suggested themselves in the course of this research, but I have chosen to focus on what can be proven from the documentary record. Instead, I present what I hope is an intriguing and in its way powerful argument about the nature of Qing rulership. Qing eunuchs inhabited a landscape that is now largely gone. The Yuanming Yuan, which was the Qianlong emperor’s principal residence, was destroyed in 1860. Even within the Forbidden City, surprisingly few traces remain of the places

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where eunuchs lived and worked. Coffee shops and souvenir stands inhabit the rooms where eunuchs awaited the call of the emperor or his consorts. The rest of the city, where eunuchs ventured, is of course dramatically changed. Occasionally, sitting in the archives and reading cases, I would notice the name of a long-gone temple, familiar only because it had bequeathed its name to a bus stop. I refuse to succumb to the clichéd temptation to mourn for a lost Beijing. Yet I hope that, while making an argument about Qing rulership, I have also been able to tell something of the story of Qing eunuchs, men whose lives were at times humdrum and at times enlivened by dramas small and large.

conventions

The subject of eunuchs’ ages comes up frequently in this book. Ages were reckoned in sui. An infant was one sui at birth, then added a sui at every lunar New Year. Thus, a person who was sixteen years old in the Western system would be between seventeen and eighteen sui. In this book, I list ages in sui when they are presented as such in my sources. When I calculate an age based on available evidence, I use the Western system. Chinese is romanized using the Pinyin system and Manchu using the Möllendorff system. Eunuchs were sometimes assigned ranks, in a system that often resembled that used for officials. Since the end of the Han dynasty, Chinese official ranks were numbered one to nine, with one being highest and nine lowest. Each rank was also subdivided into junior and senior, making for a total of eighteen ranks. There was no civil examination system for eunuchs, but the subject comes up occasionally in this book. Participants in the system competed at three levels, and those who passed were referred to as follows: the shengyuan (“student member” or “licentiate”), who had passed the entry-level examination; the juren (“recommended man”), who had passed the county-level examination; and the jinshi (“advanced scholar”), who had passed the triennial national exam. Emperors had many names, but they are best known, in and out of China, by their reign names, which they chose on ascending the throne. The sixth emperor of the Qing dynasty, for example, chose the reign name Qianlong, the name by which he is best known today. To acknowledge that Qianlong is a reign name and not a personal name, he is most properly referred to as “the Qianlong emperor,” but for the sake of brevity I often call him Qianlong. xxi

conversions

MONEY

1 liang = 1 tael = approx. 1 oz. gold or silver 1 qian = 1/10 of a tael 1 wen = a single copper coin, 1/1000 to 1/1600 of a tael 1 string of cash = 1,000 wen W E IG H T S A N D M E A SU R E S

1 hu = 37.5 kg (82.67 lbs.); often translated as “bushel” 1 shi = approx. 103 l (27 gal.) as measure of capacity; approx. 84 kg as measure of weight 1 jin = approx. 596 g (1.31 lbs.) 1 jian = approx. measure of rooms in a house; lit., the space between four pillars of a room 1 li = 0.55 km (0.33 mi.) 1 mu = approx. 0.06 ha (0.15 acres) 1 qing = 100 mu

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qing reigns

Shunzhi Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong Jiaqing Daoguang Xianfeng Tongzhi Guangxu Xuantong

1644–1661 1662–1722 1723–1735 1736–1795 1796–1820 1821–1850 1851–1861 1862–1874 1875–1908 1909–1911

xxiii

Yuanming Yuan

Weng Shan Yihe Yuan

Changchun Yuan

The Forbidden City Main Map Area (below) Dongyue Miao

Baiyun Guan Enji Zhuang

0

5 km

0

1 km

Temple of Heaven

Dinghui Si

Inner City

Tuan Imperial City Cheng Shenxing Si

Wanshan Dian

Jing Shan

Dongyue Miao The Forbidden City

Chaoyang Gate

Imperial Ancestral Temple

Outer City

Temple of Heaven

map 1. Beijing and its environs. Map courtesy of Joseph W. Stoll, Syracuse University Cartographic Laboratory.

Shenwu Gate Yinghua Dian

Jingshi Fang Sizhi (after Qianlong Ku period)

Maoqin Dian

Qianqing Gong

Nei Zoushi Fang Cining Gong

Jingshi Fang Baohe Dian

Wai Zoushi Chu Fengxian Dian

Neiwu Fu Taihe Dian

0

.25 km

Wenyuan Ge Wuying Dian

Donghua Gate

Xihua Gate Wu Gate

map 2. The Forbidden City. Map courtesy of Joseph W. Stoll, Syracuse University Cartographic Laboratory.

Introduction

This book is a study of eunuchs and those who managed them. Set in the early and mid Qing dynasty (roughly 1644–1800), it takes as its main characters four emperors who reigned in the aftermath of a period of extraordinary eunuch power, as well as some of the eunuchs of high and low station who served in and around the Chinese capital, Beijing. During the preceding dynasty, the Ming (1368–1644), eunuchs had stepped outside of their conventional roles as palace servants, usurping political and even military power. So despised were Ming eunuchs, and so great was the damage they caused to Ming state and society, that their excesses could not but serve as an admonition to later rulers against the dangers of eunuchs. The Qing rulers studied here—three of whom are considered among the most important and successful of Chinese emperors—lived with the potent legacy of Ming eunuchs and developed strategies that sought to prevent that menace from ever reappearing. Their approaches varied widely, and so this book is organized by reign periods, tracing the shifts in policy that took place over time. This is also a study of how Qing eunuchs responded to those changing policies, at some times eking out new opportunities that would bring them a modicum of prosperity, at others becoming important, wealthy, and even powerful. This story is, finally, about the unintended consequences of the gap that developed between the rhetoric and the reality of eunuch management. The informal policies introduced by Qianlong (r. 1736–1795), the last emperor to be examined in this study, largely contradicted his stated policies and ushered in a new era of eunuch power and prosperity, the effects of which continued to be felt until the end of the Qing dynasty. Eunuchs had harmed dynasties before the Ming; in fact, the corruption of these men is blamed for the decline and fall of some of China’s greatest dynasties. The 1

2

Introduction

Ming, however, was most infamous among all dynasties for the power of its eunuchs, the most notorious of whom was Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627). In the 1620s, he became more powerful than the emperor himself. Able to make or break any official at will, he ordered officials who opposed him tortured and killed. Not content to wield control over government, he also made himself an object of worship, ordering the establishment of temples devoted to him throughout the realm.1 Certainly not all eunuchs were as evil as their conventional portrayals—and some were even known for being virtuous.2 My concern here is neither to confirm the evil of some eunuchs nor to establish their reputations as misunderstood victims. Nor is it to assess the history of Ming eunuchs, which I leave to historians of that period. Instead, it is to show how widely accepted views of Ming eunuchs, and eunuchs generally, impacted, and at times even haunted, Qing rulers and their policy decisions. It is also to show how eunuchs during the early to mid Qing dynasty lived with, and at times managed to use to their advantage, the stereotyped views that others had of them. E U N U C H C L IC H É S A N D T H E L O G IC O F T H E DY NA S T IC C YC L E

Society’s fears about eunuchs stemmed from concern about the damage they could cause to ruling institutions, which could lead to dynastic decline and collapse. According to this traditional and clichéd view of the dynastic cycle, dynasties began with an energetic leader attacking and supplanting the previous dynasty’s ruler. This new leader became emperor of a new dynasty, reinvigorated governing institutions, solidified his hold over the bureaucracy, and placed severe restrictions on eunuchs, limiting this corps of workers (which could number into the thousands) largely to menial roles such as sweeping and cleaning the palace. When the emperor’s son assumed the throne, he maintained most of his father’s vigilance, but the luxuries of palace life distracted him from his duties. The slow decline in dynastic vigor continued generation by generation until, toward the end, lazy and coddled sons lost interest in rule. Once that happened, they became vulnerable to the influence of high-ranking eunuchs.3 At these moments, the well-positioned eunuchs were depicted as deploying flattery, their most renowned skill, to win over the emperor. Eunuchs used their knowledge of the ruler’s personality, gleaned from daily interactions, to surmise what he wanted to hear, which they then artfully told him. So close is the association between eunuchs and flattery that Mencius himself used the adjective “eunuch-like” to describe flatterers.4 Part of this flattery involved finding small ways to demonstrate their complete loyalty and trustworthiness.5 In addition to flattery, eunuchs, who had been biding their time, waiting for an emperor who

introduction

3

would be susceptible to their ways, found means to distract him from ruling— whether by arranging games at court, procuring lovers for him, diverting him from Confucian education, or engaging him in elaborate hobbies.6 Having distracted the emperor, the eunuchs were able to step into the power vacuum. Slowly, they colluded with corrupt officials to take power from honest officials, or wormed their way into military commands. Ultimately, their power began to challenge that of the emperor himself. Once this happened, they promoted their selfish interests in money and power until the very foundations of the dynasty were weakened. Only the coming of a new emperor to the throne, one not susceptible to flattery, could break the eunuchs’ hold on power. Such is the master narrative of the rise of eunuch power, as it existed across Chinese history. It was, and remains, an inseparable component of the more general narrative of the decline and fall of dynasties themselves. Assumptions about gender underlay the repetitive logic of eunuch power. Eunuchs were portrayed as playing essentially the same role throughout history because they were assumed to share the same gendered qualities. The slow decline in dynastic vigor was associated with the effeminacy of the dynasty’s last rulers, and with the rise of yin, or feminine, energy, at court.7 Eunuchs themselves, as beings in which yin energy predominated, exercised a contaminating influence on the yang, or masculine, energy that was necessary for effective rule. These concepts were designed into the very physical structure of the palace; yin was associated with inner areas and yang with outer areas. As the emperor was distracted from the tasks of ruling the realm (“outer affairs,” waishi), he was drawn further into the inner precincts of the palace, seldom meeting with officials, and spending his time with women and eunuchs—the yin presence in the palace. This tilting of power toward the inner palace also made it possible for women and eunuchs to collude, while weak men, also yin in nature, stood by. Eunuchs’ encroachments into “outer affairs” were presented as a contamination of yang government by yin forces. When they dominated the military, it became ineffectual; when they dominated civil affairs, the result was corruption. Reflecting on the matter, Ouyang Xiu, the great eleventh-century official and essayist, declared that the danger posed by eunuchs was even greater than that posed by women, warning rulers: “Never forget this, and never stop fearing it!”8 But there was no better-known statement of this view than in a poem, in the ancient Book of Songs, that expressed the essential similarity and interdependence of women and eunuchs: A wise man builds up a city, But a wise woman overthrows it. Admirable may be the wise woman, But she is [no better than] an owl. A woman with a long tongue, Is [like] a stepping-stone to disorder.

4

Introduction [Disorder] does not come down from heaven; It is produced by the woman. Those from whom come no lessons, no instruction, Are women and eunuchs.9

A tradition of commentaries on the poem made its meaning clear. Women and eunuchs shared similar natures. Both could do harm to the state, but in aiding one another they could be even more dangerous. Their rightful place was in the yin world of inner affairs, not in government.10 The supposed proclivities of eunuchs—perennial cruelty, a perverse love for destroying dynastic institutions—were all attributed to their natures. As men whose yin qualities came about as a result of a mutilation that rendered them “disabled men” (feiren), they stewed on their resentment and jealousy. Once circumstances permitted, they took their revenge on sanctimonious officials and on a society that had brought about their shameful loss. This simple depiction of the character of the eunuch, and the dynamics by which he acquired power, remained remarkably consistent across history. A TA L E O F T WO E U N U C H S : A H I S T O R IC A L C O N U N D RUM

This portrayal of eunuch empowerment fit perfectly with the story of Wei Zhongxian, evil eunuch of the Ming dynasty. He colluded with Madame Ke, the wet nurse of the teenage emperor, to distract him with woodworking and other pursuits until Wei and the wet nurse could usurp power. The portrayal also fits well, however, with the infamous eunuch of the late Qing dynasty, Li Lianying (1848–1911). He served the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908), but having flattered his way into her confidence, he came to wield so much power that, the sources tell us, no edict could be proposed in the Grand Council unless one of the senior grand counselors said: “Chief eunuch Li also approves of this action, so we know it is the correct one.”11 The perceived similarities between eunuchs Wei and Li were, it is said, not lost on the young Guangxu emperor (r. 1875–1908). One morning he was studying with his tutor Weng Tonghe, and read the passage “Only women and small men are difficult to cultivate.” Guangxu shed a tear, realizing that for him the passage was a clear reference to the empress dowager and Li Lianying. Weng responded ominously that when the last Ming emperor read the same passage, he would have thought it a reference to Wei Zhongxian and the wet nurse Madame Ke—therefore an ominous sign of dynastic collapse.12 Different circumstances aside, both eunuchs were credited with great skill in flattery, and with appetites for corruption, intrigue, pettiness, and cruelty.13 It is the strange similarities between the stories of Li Lianying and Wei Zhongxian that are perhaps most arresting: the way that history repeats itself in unusual

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detail. In accounts of Wei Zhongxian, the famous moment in which his usurpation of power becomes complete occurs when he orders that officials address him by the name “Nine Thousand Years.” Since “Ten Thousand Years” is the epithet for the emperor, a eunuch being called by the name Nine Thousand Years suggests that he is, in essence, nine-tenths of the emperor. One important person at the Qing court noted ominously: “Some outer-court officials have begun to call Li Lianying by the name Nine Thousand Years. If eunuchs are come to this, then we’re not far from the late Ming and Wei Zhongxian.”14 If the end of this morality tale is so remarkably similar to the Ming pattern, so too is its beginning. Stories of Ming eunuch power usually commence with the depiction of the first Ming emperor ordering that a wooden sign be erected over the gates of the palace warning eunuchs on pain of death not to become involved in government.15 So strict was this emperor, where eunuchs were concerned, that, we are told, on hearing an elderly eunuch casually mention something about government matters, he ordered him sent back to his village. True to the logic of dynastic cycle, subsequent Ming rulers failed to heed the warnings emblazoned on this sign, and by the end of the dynasty the warning had gone dangerously ignored. In the case of the Qing, the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644–1661), first Qing emperor to sit on the throne in Beijing, ordered the prominent placement of a similar warning that eunuchs stay out of government.16 Though less famous than its Ming predecessor, this placard would likewise preside over a resurgence of eunuch power, one that, in the eyes of many late-Qing and Republican writers, more than superficially resembled that of the Ming. This book then has a puzzle at its core: Was it possible that Chinese rulers, taught to use history as a guide to governance and carefully warned about the dangers of eunuchs, still managed to fall for the same old tricks, time and again? How could the Ming and then the Qing dynasties each begin with prominent cautions against eunuchs becoming involved in government, but then end with just that involvement? This book proposes that the answer can be found only by searching beyond the highly stylized views of eunuchs and the emperors who managed them. It supposes that beneath the clichéd representation of the relationship between eunuch and emperor lies another, more complex reality, and one that differed greatly from case to case. Getting beyond clichés, however, is not easy, as we shall see. T H E C HA L L E N G E O F T H E S O U R C E S

Chinese eunuchs are difficult to study, because the sources on this group were largely compiled by the Confucian historians who despised them. These Confucians viewed eunuchs at best as menial servants, and at worst as a constant threat to good government. The use of eunuchs was something between “dirty little secret”

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Introduction

and “necessary evil” in the Chinese empire. Emperors were to be Confucian monarchs, obliged to “govern all-under-heaven with filial piety [yi xiao zhi tianxia].”17 Yet in the palace itself they abided and even quietly supported an institution that ran directly counter to the core values of Confucianism. According to the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiao jing), the body, even the hair and the skin, are gifts from one’s parents, and one should not injure them. How much more, then, would total emasculation—the removal of testes and penis, as was done in the case of Chinese eunuchs—be considered a harm to the body and an insult to one’s parents? Mencius said that of all the crimes one could commit, none was more heinous than not having offspring.18 What, then, of a system in which men forever ended their ability to procreate, most of them before they had reproduced? Because it violated fundamental Confucian and even Chinese values, the system existed quietly, designed to guarantee the purity of the imperial line by ensuring that any child born in the palace was the emperor’s. Because the system operated largely beneath the surface, there are very few sources either authored by eunuchs or that tell history from their point of view. Furthermore, in moments when eunuchs became powerful, they managed to keep most of their activities out of official court records, so those activities are recounted only in questionable rumor-filled narratives of court life that are hard to accept as fully accurate, and in the aforementioned writings of anti-eunuch Confucians. Sources such as these only confirm the master narrative of eunuch power that existed since time immemorial. Even when it comes to the much more recent Qing period, and Li Lianying, the most famous of eunuchs, it is difficult to learn anything definitive about him or eunuch power at the time. There are miscellanies aplenty—random notes, gossip, and the like, published for narrow circulation—but they are often of dubious historical value. The archives in Beijing contain very little concrete information on Li Lianying or even mention of him. One reason for this, as mentioned above, is that powerful eunuchs could keep their activities out of official sources. Another reason is that, unlike officials, eunuchs worked in the palace itself, so communication between them and the sovereign tended to be oral. Even fundamental details about Li Lianying’s life are hard to substantiate. Scholars long debated which county he was from, and they continue to debate even so basic a question as how his name was written.19 His death is as hotly debated as his life. Some argue that he was murdered—either by factions within the court or by fellow eunuchs—while others maintain that he died from illness. More mundane details, like the year of his death, are also contested: the Washington Post announced his death more than a decade prematurely.20 If it is this difficult to sort out basic facts such as these about Li Lianying’s life and death, it is accordingly more difficult to figure out his role in politics and at the Qing court. Was he, as some miscellanies argue, the guiding force behind Cixi’s decision to support the Boxers during the Boxer Rebellion?21 Was he so naive

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about international affairs that he proposed paying the Boxers on a per capita basis for every foreigner they killed?22 Is it true that he was so presumptuous in his relationship with the Empress Dowager Cixi that when talking to her he used the informal version of “we” (zamen) to discuss what actions they should take?23 Li Lianying’s story, like those of other all-powerful eunuchs at the end of dynasties, is wrapped in the master narrative of eunuch power. That narrative is pervasive enough to fill in the details when the facts are unknown—and with eunuchs they are so often unknown. Extreme accounts of Li Lianying’s misdoings, then, become believable precisely because they fit with popular expectations of the ways in which powerful eunuchs act. There is no evidence, for example, that he tortured his enemies, but that did not stop people from writing that one of his nicknames was “Combs Li,” after the torture device used to squeeze the fingers of the accused; apparently, the story goes, he used them on his enemies.24 When sources compared Wei Zhongxian with Li Lianying, rather than finding the peculiarities of each, they measured both against the narrative used to describe all “notorious” eunuchs.25 Thus far we have spoken of a tiny fraction of eunuchs—those who achieved fame and power. If it is so difficult to learn about famous eunuchs, how much more difficult is it to learn about the lives of the thousands of other eunuchs who worked in Beijing? Most eunuchs arose from obscurity and lived in obscurity, excluded from the genealogies that could tell us about their family background. They tended to come from the same cluster of counties located to the south of Beijing, but gazetteers and other local history sources rarely if ever brag about them as native sons. They changed their names, often more than once, and their new names were almost always chosen from a startlingly small number of easily recognizable eunuch names, making them hard to differentiate. The small number of eunuch names, and the regularity with which eunuchs changed their names, made it nearly impossible to track a eunuch through palace records. Furthermore, as the following chapters suggest, there was little attempt to record eunuchs in personnel records in any case until the Qianlong period. As we will also see, however, eunuchs’ fluid, common names could be a tremendous source of empowerment for them. One reason I chose to explore the management of eunuchs in the first 150 years of the Qing—what has been characterized as a calm period in which eunuchs were carefully and effectively managed—is that the sources are richer for this time than for any other in Chinese history. Many of these sources are archival, and thus present an everyday account of eunuchs and their management rather than an idealized and clichéd view. Among the largely impersonal bureaucratic documents in Beijing’s First Historical Archives’ Imperial Household Department collection, between reports on the amount of firewood used in one palace and the amount of wax used in another, sits a fascinating genre of documents: the case reports of crimes and transgressions committed by eunuchs in the palace. These reports, which I draw on extensively for this study, include investigations, confessions,

8

Introduction

coroner’s reports, and dispositions. These documents can be formulaic and unreliable, but when studied carefully, they offer genuine insight into the lives of Qing eunuchs. Another reason for studying eunuchs in this period is that it encompassed the reigns of three of China’s most important emperors: Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong. Together ruling for an astounding 137 years, these three men are widely agreed to be among the best emperors in Chinese history. A gifted military leader, Kangxi completed the conquest of China and returned vast swathes of the south to the empire. He also won many Han elites to his side, and soothed passions inflamed over the conquest. Yongzheng, his son, reigned for just thirteen years, but in that time managed to transform and rationalize many aspects of Chinese government, including the system of taxation, bureaucratic communications, and inner-court government. Qianlong led China in an age of great prosperity, expanding the empire to its largest extent in history and becoming a great patron of culture and the arts. How better to test assumptions about dynastic decline and its associations with eunuch power than to examine eunuch management during the most robust period of Qing rule? Yet the governments of these three men have never been closely examined from the standpoint of their management of their eunuchs. Historians have generally acquiesced in a dynastic-cycle model, agreeing that household management was fully vigorous in this age. Yin forces, in the form of women and eunuchs, were kept in check, within the inner palace. Only in later periods were eunuchs thought to have become important and influential. Getting at the reality of eunuch government in the reigns of these three great emperors, however, can tell us much about them as rulers. Indeed, their rulerships look quite different when viewed through the lens of their household management. B EYO N D A H I ST ORY OF OU R DY NAST Y ’ S PA L AC E S : T H E G A P B E T W E E N R H E T O R IC A N D R E A L I T Y

Ming eunuchs cast a long shadow over Qing rule. Even by the time of the Qianlong emperor, as Alexander Woodside has noted, many court officials still found the Qing emperors worth supporting because they had solved the eunuch problem. As Woodside also noted, the palace history that Qianlong ordered his future grand secretary Yu Minzhong to compile in the 1760s celebrated the Qing achievement in finally controlling eunuchs, which was “the great unresolved problem of court politics.”26 As Qianlong would note in its preface, the book would also serve as a warning to future Qing emperors—to his sons and grandsons—about the evils of eunuchs. As a sort of victory lap for the Qianlong emperor, the book lauds the accomplishments of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and of course himself—rulers who not only managed eunuchs carefully, but did so according to a meticulously elaborated set of principles that had been set out almost from

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antiquity, and discussed by scholars who lived in the decades that followed the Ming collapse. Well aware of the master narrative, they worked hard to avoid falling into the same trap as Ming emperors. The book Qianlong commissioned, entitled A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces (Guochao gong shi), has been the single most important source of information on the Qing imperial household, forming an important source for previous studies of eunuchs published both within and outside of China. This is with good reason, for the work reprints imperial edicts that are found nowhere else. Many were orders that emperors issued to their chief eunuchs, with careful instructions to disseminate their contents to their subordinate, supervisory eunuchs, who in turn were to pass the information on to the rank and file. If other such edicts, or archival versions of those edicts, still exist, they are not open to researchers.27 The published edicts themselves also contain tantalizing bits of information about ordinary life in the palace. Often, for example, the emperor not only announces a new rule, but also reveals the specific incident that engendered it. A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces is a flawed source, however, precisely because of the purpose for which it was created: to craft a vision of Qianlong and his predecessors as having been uniformly tough on eunuchs. Though it is a collection of edicts and other documents by different emperors written at different times, the consistency of the viewpoint throughout is remarkable, with regard both to imperial management style and to eunuch character. As such, the text, though essential, is also misleading. It obscures significant differences between emperors, and thus, rather than allowing us to get beyond stereotypes about emperors and the eunuchs they managed, it only confirms them. It also minimizes the real role of eunuchs in the early and high Qing. Historians have relied on A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces to prove that Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong were equally and consistently tough on eunuchs.28 This has made it easy to confirm old clichés that eunuch power returned to the Qing under the influence of the empress dowager, or perhaps when weak (yin) late-Qing emperors ruled. In this book, we look beyond A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces and other normative texts that tell us what the palace was supposed to be like, and examine the much messier, and at times contradictory, world of everyday palace management.29 In doing so, we find that the quiet period of post-Ming governance over eunuchs was not as quiet as it has been portrayed. This study also reveals the important variations in each early- and mid-Qing emperors’ policies, contrary to their uniform representation in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces. It is easy enough to label the gap between imperial rhetoric and reality, where eunuchs were concerned, as a species of hypocrisy. Qing emperors inveighed against the dangers of eunuchs, but then quietly permitted them freedoms and responsibilities that were at times eerily reminiscent of those given to powerful Ming eunuchs. How do we understand this behavior? The answer is different for each emperor, and is therefore detailed in the pages that follow.

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Introduction

But common themes emerge. First, the gap between imperial rhetoric and reality is a striking, and perhaps extreme, example of what we understand to be the performative aspects of imperial rulership. Beginning with the work of historians such as Pamela Kyle Crossley and Evelyn Rawski, we have come to understand that the emperorship was more than the voice of a single individual. It was, in Crossley’s words, “an ensemble of instruments playing the dynamic role, or the ascribed dynamic role, in the governing process.”30 The skillful emperor—a category that would include at least three of the emperors described here—was nothing if not just that, and used to full advantage the many means of communication at his disposal, creating not a single consistent voice, but one that was appropriate to audience and purpose. Qianlong was the master here, but we observe other emperors doing it as well. Second, the gap between imperial rhetoric and reality, where eunuchs were concerned, was the product of the very real need they filled. This institution, which survived in one form or another for thousands of years, was constantly viewed as a danger to the realm, yet persist it did. The stated reason for its persistence was the maintenance of the integrity of the imperial line. If a child was born in the palace, there had to be certainty that the emperor was the father. Yet as this book demonstrates, this simple rationale breaks down under scrutiny. There were many eunuchs who had no duties whatsoever with respect to imperial womenfolk, and who played other roles, large and small, in the emperor’s world. Tempting as it might be to locate a specific role in the bureaucracy that explains the persistence and importance of eunuchs, the truth was that the institution persisted not because eunuchs filled a single empty space in the bureaucracy, but because of their flexibility, their ability to perform a large range of duties and services. Kangxi and Qianlong, grandfather and grandson, both spoke harshly against eunuchs, but both gave them important positions and privileges—albeit different positions, and different privileges. What may have united these two men was a shared sense that eunuchs were, collectively, a danger to the realm, but that individual eunuchs, the men they got to know and trust personally, were different from the norm. As Matthew Sommer suggested to me, eunuchs were not unlike the county-level clerks and runners so carefully studied by Bradly Reed; though “regularly vilified as corrupt and self-serving,” writes Reed, they were essential to the functioning of county government.31 T H E QU E ST IO N O F E U N U C H B IO L O G Y

In order to understand the role in history of this special category of men who served the emperor, it is necessary to examine the validity of the stereotypes and assumptions about the homogeneity of eunuchs that persisted across the centuries. What can biology tell us about whether eunuchs carried similar traits and

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characteristics? Given what we know to be the effect of hormones on the body, can we locate a biological source of eunuch similarities and difference? Did biology dictate eunuch appearance or even personality? The answer would at first seem obvious. The removal of both penis and testes and the creation of a smooth scar made eunuchs’ bodies starkly different from those of other men. Beyond an absence of genitals, which was hidden by clothing, there were dramatic hormonal differences. Testosterone and other androgenic hormones are produced at three sites in the human body: the testes, the ovaries, and the adrenal glands. Eunuchs, having neither testes nor ovaries, thus produced only the very small amount of this hormone that came from the adrenal glands. In addition, there is strong evidence that women, though they produce one-tenth the testosterone that men produce, are far more sensitive to its effects.32 Eunuchs had far less testosterone than either men or women, yet had the sensitivity toward it of men’s bodies. This condition suggests that they would suffer profound biological consequences from castration and be readily distinguishable from other men. The evidence for such differences beyond their lack of genitals, however, is surprisingly elusive.33 The most nuanced and Qing-specific evidence I have found for the physical differences between eunuchs and other men are in the imperial household cases that deal with instances of eunuchs who fled from the palace and then attempted to pass as non-eunuchs on the outside. The reality, with some caveats, is that a startlingly large number of eunuchs were able to come and go from the palace, hiding for long periods of time on the outside as non-eunuchs and going incognito among ordinary people. There were also many instances in which uncastrated men pretended to be eunuchs, and no one was the wiser until their lower bodies were inspected.34 The range and complexity of these cases suggest the many roles that biology could play and show that there was no one eunuch physical type. Even when it came to what one might think of as an obvious difference—facial hair— the distinction was not absolute. Not all uncastrated men grew or could grow facial hair, and not all eunuchs had hairless faces. The eunuch Shi Xi, for example, seemed to be stating a well-known truth when he explained, after he ran away in 1801, that because he was castrated in middle age he still had a beard, and no one could tell that he was a eunuch.35 Even in the case of those castrated as youths, their beardlessness often went unnoticed not only because not all men could or chose to grow beards, but because many runaway eunuchs disguised themselves as monks (who shaved their heads and faces completely).36 Sources are clear on the fact that, beardless or not, many eunuchs were able to pass as non-eunuchs while on the outside, sometimes for years. The somewhat elusive evidence about the physical effects of castration notwithstanding, there were several areas in which biology tended to play a conspicuous role in the eunuch’s differentiation from other men. If castration was done well before puberty, the eunuch would develop very long arms and legs. This is because

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Introduction

one function of testosterone is to signal the long bones in the body to stop growing—a process termed “closure of the epiphysis.”37 By the Qing this fact seems to have been understood, and castration of the fully prepubescent was avoided. Eunuchs who committed crimes and were forced to confess usually recorded the ages at which they were castrated; age at castration also appears in the biographies of eunuchs at Enji Zhuang cemetery (a burial ground for eunuchs established by the Yongzheng emperor, and discussed in subsequent chapters). Taken together, the record suggests an ideal age of castration as during the course of puberty but before its end. This informal policy likely kept eunuchs from growing too tall and lanky, although it’s quite possible that those whose bodies developed in this way were moved into positions as eunuch guards in the palace.38 In many cases, age at castration did seem to influence a eunuch’s appearance, but that effect would become most apparent with the passage of time. Those castrated prior to adulthood tended to look younger longer. As the years went by, however, these eunuchs tended to stand out when the lack of testosterone brought about changes to their faces. The cases of eunuch runaways contain many examples of eunuchs who spent years on the outside but then returned only when they thought physical changes associated with aging would make their castrated state obvious.39 Archival evidence demonstrates that plenty of men became eunuchs in later life, and that some even became eunuchs when they were already grandfathers.40 There was, however, a marked preference both for young eunuchs, and for eunuchs who had not reproduced before castration. Eunuchs who had biological families were at a distinct disadvantage in their careers, and were generally confined to more menial jobs at the outer reaches of the palace world. Among the biographies of successful eunuchs that appear in the Enji Zhuang cemetery, none that I have found describe a eunuch castrated in adulthood. Childless eunuchs had the advantage of no family ties to create divided loyalty. Another factor is suggested in a remark by Hešen, the corrupt Qianlong-era official who was chief minister of the Imperial Household Department. He said that those castrated before full puberty were also easier to control, and put the cutoff at sixteen sui (roughly age seventeen).41 There also seems to have been an aesthetic preference for young eunuchs. This is mentioned in a well-known and often-cited article by a Westerner in China, George Stent, who noted the physical attractiveness of young eunuchs, in dramatic contrast with older ones. He also wrote that boy eunuchs were considered completely pure, and were especially prized by female members of the household for duties that were “impossible to describe.”42 This was likely a reference to the boy eunuchs dubbed “earrings,” who were used by the female members of the imperial household for sexual gratification.43 Since these boys were considered pure, such actions were not labeled lascivious. Certainly the most direct evidence for the preference for young eunuchs is the fact that eunuchs would often admit, under

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interrogation, that they had lied about their ages, claiming to be teenagers when they were well into their twenties. Regardless of age at castration, it is clear from the archival record that aging was the eunuch’s worst enemy. As the images in figures 1 through 4 reveal, although young eunuchs usually looked no different from other men, with the passage of time differences became apparent. Age also brought the onset of physical ailments, chief among them being osteoporosis, which manifested itself in the form of leg pain.44 On lists of disabled eunuchs, leg problems indeed seem to be the only widespread ailment.45 Less quick on their feet, old eunuchs grew undesirable to those they served in the palace, and their careers could suffer downward trends. Just as young eunuchs were considered appealing, so too were old eunuchs viewed with disdain, particularly as the eighteenth century progressed. Qianlong began a policy of moving older eunuchs from the palace and into the princely households, while forcing the princes to supply the palace with young eunuchs. Disdain for aged eunuchs is also evident from the often-reported fact that their voices tended to grow squeaky, making them unpleasant to listen to. As will be discussed in chapter 9, antipathy toward aged eunuchs put career pressure on young eunuchs, who needed to establish themselves financially, or as indispensable, as early as possible in their careers—often during their twenties. George Stent likewise noted the popular dislike for aged eunuchs, writing about the repulsiveness of their voice and appearance.46 Clues as to whether there was a biological impact on the eunuch’s personality are particularly elusive. Given the association of testosterone with aggression, it might be tempting to see eunuchs as more docile than other people, along the lines Hešen suggested. In this book, for example, we occasionally meet eunuchs whose approach to the world appears particularly nonaggressive. Was this because their lack of testosterone made them more easygoing and even docile? This view might fit with the work of writers we meet in chapter 1, who wrote that castration made eunuchs yin in nature. The problem with this analysis, however, is that a yin nature was used to explain every aspect (and foible) of eunuch personality. Submissiveness, aggression, femininity, bullying: whatever a eunuch did was explained by what castration had done to his personality. It explained everything, and therefore nothing. Young eunuchs may not generally have been easily distinguishable from the general populace. Important for this story, however, is the fact that most people seemed to think they would know a eunuch when they saw or heard one. In oftencontradictory terms, they described the features that betrayed a eunuch. What it meant to be a eunuch, however, was often in the eye of the beholder. Members of the police force charged with finding runaway eunuchs knew that the way to locate the missing man was by chasing down his connections, not by physical appearances. Furthermore, when eunuchs ran to the south, it was their northern accents rather than their physical appearance that gave them away.47 Biology played a role in a eunuch’s identity, but it did not determine his destiny.

figure 1 (top). Eunuchs outside a palace building. Gerow D. Brill Papers, no. 1379, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

figure 2 (bottom). September 1923: Eunuchs scuffle with police after their eviction from the Forbidden City in Beijing by order of the emperor. Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images.

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figure 3. Group of former palace eunuchs at Gang Tie temple, c. 1933–1946. Image courtesy Hedda Morrison Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library.

T H E QU E ST IO N O F E U N U C H I D E N T I T Y

Though castration did not decisively determine eunuch appearance or personality, eunuchs nonetheless shared the twin experiences of going through the horror of castration, and of living as castrated men. Being thus set apart from other men led to a degree of commonality and solidarity. The temples in and around the city, so many of which were constructed, reconstructed, and patronized by eunuchs, served as sites that could reinforce that solidarity. Eunuchs were, as Susan Naquin has noted, men who showed “an unusual capacity for collective action.”48 Their religious lives were centered on temple fairs; the collection of donations for the construction, reconstruction, and renovation of temples; and the building of communities (often attached to temples) that would support them in retirement.49 Nearly half of the temples in the capital area, in fact, were established by eunuchs.50 Traces of that life were evident even after the fall of the Qing, when clusters of eunuchs were found to be living in temples all over the city. The last known group of them to live communally inhabited a temple in the western suburbs, near a golf course run for foreigners.51 Stone tablets

figure 4. Former palace eunuchs, c. 1933–1946. Images courtesy Hedda Morrison Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library.

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Introduction

figure 5. Statue of Gang Tie. Image Courtesy Hedda Morrison Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library.

erected at temples and burial grounds in the Beijing area also attested to the cooperative efforts of eunuchs who raised money to honor a temple or particular eunuch. These were forces that bolstered their collective identity. One important temple that helped form eunuch identity stood (and still stands) in northwestern Beijing.52 The structure was dedicated to the Ming eunuch Gang Tie (see figure 5), who was supposedly (his story has been debunked) a loyal official to the Yongle emperor, much celebrated for his military prowess. So great was the emperor’s trust in Gang Tie that when he planned to embark on a hunting trip, he left the palace in Gang’s hands. Knowing that the court was rife with intrigue, Gang anticipated that he would be falsely accused of sexual improprieties with the emperor’s womenfolk. To show his loyalty to the emperor, he castrated himself and deposited his organs in the emperor’s saddlebag. Sure enough, when the emperor

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returned from the hunt, an official accused Gang of fornication. With a gesture toward the emperor’s saddlebag Gang, having become a eunuch, proved his fidelity and the falseness of the charges. The story of Gang Tie built common identity by celebrating the essence of eunuch loyalty, which was absolute in nature. The loyalty of the government official, on the other hand, was based on filial piety, and officials learned loyalty to the emperor by the filial piety they practiced toward their parents. These twin virtues reinforced each other, saving officials from a conflict of interest between family and ruler. Although in the Shunzhi and Kangxi periods, as we will see, the loyalty of high-level eunuchs was constructed as similar to that of high officials, in large measure because these men were officials, by the mid–eighteenth century (and during the Qianlong reign in particular) all eunuchs were to subscribe to the model of absolute loyalty. They were, for example, not entitled to observe mourning for their parents. Yongzheng would set up a rainy-day fund to help eunuchs defray the costs of their parents’ funerals, but never used the language of filial piety. When eunuchs sought permission to return home to care for sick parents, they justified the request on emotional grounds, rather than laying claim to a Confucian duty that linked family and state in a web of parallel obligations. This was something eunuchs forewent when they entered palace service. An important exception, we will see, existed for Kangxi-era senior eunuchs. Buddhist ideas provided another way for eunuchs to conceptualize their relationship to the ruler. It is well known that the Empress Dowager Cixi was called the Old Buddha (Lao Foye) by the eunuchs in her household. It is also well known that she enjoyed dressing up as the Bodhisattva Guanyin, with Li Lianying serving as her attendant. Photographs of the dressing up were in fact disseminated from the palace and are often reproduced. Much less well known, however, is that the conceptualization of the ruler as Buddha was not limited to the empress dowager. Eunuchs called all rulers Old Buddha, as a way of seeking out their merciful sides. The conceptualization of ruler as Buddha was not just for the world of nicknames. It was used in many of the inscriptions that appeared on eunuch tombstones at Enji Zhuang and on temple grounds.53 The various models of the eunuch’s relationship to the ruler leads us to question how eunuchs are best characterized. Should we consider them servants, slaves, officials, or even employees? Somehow all of these categories apply and yet do not fully apply; eunuchs’ status lay somewhere in the midst of all of them. Theirs was a form of enslavement, in that once castrated and having entered into palace service, they gave up all rights to leave the profession. Eunuchs were not, at least in theory, free to come and go at will—although as subsequent chapters will suggest, many did. They, however, also had much in common with officials, who also gave up the right to quit the profession once they were appointed to office. Both were required to ask permission to retire or to return home for sick leave. Like bureaucrats,

20

Introduction

eunuchs received an official salary in the form of silver and a grain allotment. The money they received was a fraction of that given to officials, and their grain allotment of much poorer quality, but these were labeled salary nonetheless. While the ultimate status of the eunuch is hard to categorize, there was one important feature that is salient across the long period of this study. Most eunuchs were of low status inside the palace, but of high status on the outside. The exceptions were chief eunuchs and the highly educated elite eunuchs that would surround early Qing emperors; these men’s high status applied everywhere. The rankand-file eunuchs, however, were of such low status that they could not address the emperor, officials, or members of the imperial family unless spoken to. They were entitled to only the simplest of names, which reinforced their low status. When even the lowliest eunuch stepped outside the confines of the palace, however, he became a man of importance, and people tended to cower in his presence. Sometimes eunuchs would deliberately augment their entourages while on the outside as a way of garnering status. They would hire followers and travel in decked-out carts to intimidate others on the outside. Or they would pretend to be high officials.54 In general, however, their mere presence was enough to intimidate local people, and more than once these people referred to them as officials in their confessions. So high was the status of eunuchs outside the palace that cases arose in the early nineteenth century of men pretending to be eunuchs in order to wield greater influence in society.55 And there were certainly many cases of eunuchs who needed to be disciplined for their arrogance on the outside. In the English language the word “eunuch” simply denotes castration. The common Chinese equivalents, however, imply not just castration, but entry into palace service. All eunuchs were castrated, but not all castrated men could become eunuchs. If there were some enduring principles about what it meant to be a eunuch, they emanated not so much from biology as from the eunuch’s status, however categorized, as someone in palace service. Once a castrated man was a eunuch, that status stuck with him for life. Boys born with an undescended testicle were sometimes accidentally incompletely castrated. Once the error was discovered (because secondary sex characteristics emerged), they were released from service and sent back to their villages, yet kept the designation “eunuch.”56 Sharing a eunuch identity did not always mean that one felt solidarity with other eunuchs. The fissures that developed between eunuchs frequently undercut a sense of common purpose. Those fissures were the product of competition in their work environment and the ill feelings that went along with it. The case reports that detail eunuch misdoing reveal that the Qing palaces were often rife with the kind of petty contentions and jealousies that hinted at underlying resentments: young versus old, those with access to supplemental incomes versus those forced to subsist on their salaries, those with supportive families versus those estranged from their families. Over the course of the eighteenth century these ten-

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sions would increase. The cases examined in subsequent chapters hint at all of these, but together they suggest forces that could undercut solidarity, if not identity itself. Eunuch identity was also frequently hyphenated, and eunuchs clung together according to their specialty, sometimes deriving as much of their sense of self from that specialty as from their status as eunuchs—or even more. There were barbereunuchs, dog-cultivating-eunuchs, monk-eunuchs, guard-eunuchs, and a host of others. The gardener-eunuchs who worked at the Yuanming Yuan (the emperor’s magnificent garden palace in northwestern Beijing) and in the Forbidden City were highly skilled men who had their own identity within an identity: they attended particular fairs and had a specific holiday they celebrated—the birthday of the god of flowers.57 To the gardeners we may add other highly trained specialists, such as the actor-eunuchs who worked in the Office of Imperial Entertainments, and the artisan-eunuchs who worked in the Office of Imperial Construction. What we might think of as the gender expression of eunuchs often came more from their hyphenated status than from their identity as eunuchs. Eunuch-actors, for example who played the roles of women in the palace theater, were often visibly more feminine than, for example, the guard-eunuchs who watched over the inner precincts of the palace. Perhaps the most feminine of famous Qing eunuchs was Xiaodezhang, who was in the palace theater before he became a favorite of the empress dowager.58 There was very little movement into these specialties except by eunuchs who joined them when young, after a brief stint proving their mettle in an office such as the palace sweeping office. Palace Cleaning Office. When they joined their specialties they became apprenticed to master eunuchs, who took responsibility for their training. Only failure in their specialties would result in their rejoining the general pool of ordinary eunuchs. Subsequent chapters describe the surprising extent to which eunuchs were able to leave the palace, hide out, change their names, and reenter anew. For the smaller number of specialist eunuchs, there was no easy return to a master once they had left his charge. Occupying as they did this strange space between employee, servant, slave, and official, eunuchs found that their freedoms were defined by the rules and practices through which they were managed. Even their ability to express their identity, in other words, was subject to the freedoms given them by those who controlled them—a fact that says a great deal about how their position in society is best understood. These rules and practices changed so deeply and fundamentally over time that eunuch identity, too, changed. Ming eunuchs were governed so differently from Qing eunuchs that they can appear as fundamentally different beings; indeed, in the Qing documentary record one quickly notices that different words were used for them. Qing sources used taijian as a neutral term to describe eunuchs of their own era, but its synonym huanguan to describe the Ming eunuchs, who were known for overstepping their proper place.

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Introduction

The question of ethnic difference also hovers over Qing eunuchs, who lived during a time when those they served were Manchus, not Han Chinese like themselves. At least one scholar who has explored the issue believes that Manchu distinctiveness was what allowed the new rulers to see the problems of the eunuch institution and avoid them.59 Though there might well be an element of truth to this, and though Manchu rulers might sometimes have claimed it to be the case, the answers are not simple or straightforward, and that case should not be overstated. As chapters 2 and 3 will show, the very first Qing emperor to inhabit the palace quickly fell into the pattern of empowering eunuchs; and the second, Kangxi, that paragon of Manchu virtue, likewise allowed eunuchs into the upper reaches of his government, and his rule was damaged in the process. Being Manchu may have affected the rhetoric of Qing rulers, but it had far less of an impact on the daily management of the palace and on their relations with eunuchs in their service. Other caveats apply. It must first be noted that ethnic difference between eunuch and master was not unique to the Qing. Though the Ming rulers were Han Chinese, many of their eunuchs came from Korea or Southeast Asia. Even the unusual hats worn by Ming eunuchs were essentially based on the hats worn by Korean kings, adding to the sense that Ming eunuchs could be ethnically other.60 Conversely, in the Qing, ethnic difference between eunuch and master was not universal. Though Manchus were not supposed to become eunuchs, we know that some quietly did, even after the Yongzheng emperor specifically prohibited it.61 In a Republican-period census of temple residents, many of whom were eunuchs, those surveyed had to disclose their ethnicity. The results have not been tabulated, but a glance through the raw data, assembled temple by temple, is enough to dispel the myth that Manchus did not become eunuchs.62 Manchu eunuchs were in the minority, and once castrated they likely kept their ethnicity quiet. Yet they were Manchus nonetheless. Finally, it should not be assumed that only Han governments had used eunuchs before the Manchu conquest. The Manchus used castrated servants well before they ruled China from Beijing.63 The Mongols, too, used eunuchs in their government. We should also abandon the notion that ethnic difference between Han and Manchu was used as a source of authority in the palace world. There was no a priori superiority of Manchu over eunuch. Even when it came to matters of law, Kangxi opined that Manchus and eunuchs should be treated the same. When he heard, for example, of an instance of a eunuch killing a Manchu, he called not for special punishment, but for simply following the law governing killing in an affray.64 There were many instances in which eunuchs had authority over Manchus. This might have been as a matter of regulation, but most often it happened because of the contested nature of power in the palace world. That world was peopled with many categories of people, whose roles we are still a long way from understanding. There were sula (short for sula amban), for example, who were unemployed Manchu ban-

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ner personnel.65 There were baitanga, a Manchu term that literally meant “of use” and was a rough official title for those employed for specific tasks. Some baitanga were used for their specialist knowledge—for example, in the training and care of dogs and falcons.66 There were also, at the Yuanming Yuan, families known as yuanhu, or garden families, who lived on the grounds and farmed the land. When members of these groups got into conflict with eunuchs, no one seemed to assume that Manchu ethnicity trumped eunuch position. Nor did ethnic distinction create divisions between Manchu and eunuch. From the very start of the dynasty there were episodes in which Manchus and eunuchs colluded in wrongdoing. And by the eighteenth century we see many examples of warm friendship between Manchu and eunuch. In the gambling parties discussed in chapter 9, we see them playing games of chance together. Despite the absence of a strong ethnic divide between eunuch and Manchu, an argument can be made that when it came to emperors’ relationships with eunuchs, the eunuchs might well have represented ordinary Han Chinese to their rulers. The Qing emperors had little if any regular contact with nonelite Chinese. When the imperial cortege left the palace, the usual rule was that the streets were cleared of people; it was rare for a ruler to allow himself to be seen by his subjects. The Han Chinese whom emperors dealt with in daily life were members of the officialdom, and so from an extremely rarefied stratum of society. Eunuchs, on the other hand, were mostly from ordinary families. In rituals, they played the role of regular Chinese. When the emperor symbolically plowed the first furrow of land, it was eunuchs who dressed the part of peasants.67 When members of the court wanted the experience of daily commerce, they visited Maimai Jie, the “commerce street” at the Yuanming Yuan, where eunuchs played the role of ordinary shopkeepers, shouting out their wares and haggling with the household members. Beyond these simple examples, however, it is difficult to prove anything definitive about the role of eunuchs as ordinary representatives of Han subjects. What, then, did it mean to be a eunuch? The answer suggested in this book is that there is no uniform answer to this question. It meant different things to different men. Many people who hear about my research suggest that I could understand eunuchs better if I studied them in different cultures at different times. There do, often, seem to be similarities between Chinese eunuchs and those of other governments. My research early on, however, moved me in the opposite direction, and I quickly discovered not only that Ming eunuchs were different from Qing eunuchs, but also that Qing eunuchs themselves differed dramatically from one another. The startling nature of castration has led us to assume that it dictated personality, but, as this book will show, personality was in part dictated by the details of imperial rules, and by eunuchs’ abilities to push back against those rules and create opportunities for advancement, self-expression, and even identity.

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Introduction

T H E OU T L I N E O F T H E B O O K

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of three scholars who lived during the Ming– Qing transition and whose families were directly affected by Ming eunuch power. In this chapter we examine the consensus that these men, well known as the three greatest thinkers of their age, forged on the nature of eunuch power. They constructed their consensus from previous scholarly studies of eunuchs and from reading history, but they also drew upon their personal observations and experiences. This chapter explores their ideas at length because those ideas found their way, to varying extents, into Qing ruling policy. Their view of eunuchs was no less negative than that of their forebears, but it was highly nuanced, and those details would be of great relevance to the Qing emperors studied in this book. Together, their ideas forged a gold standard for eunuch management that would influence Qing rulers. Chapter 2 turns to the brief reign of the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644–1661), the first Qing emperor to occupy the Forbidden City. Historians have long debated the role of eunuchs in his reign. Some have seen in Shunzhi a relapse into the excesses of the Ming, as epitomized by his creation of a set of eunuch offices called the Thirteen Yamen (Shisan Yamen), which seemed to replicate hated Ming palace eunuch institutions. Other historians have seen in the Thirteen Yamen a limitation and not a replication of Ming eunuch power, in part because the number of these offices was reduced from its Ming heights, and because Shunzhi seems to have reduced the overall number of eunuchs in his employ. The examination of fresh sources in this chapter establishes without a doubt that Shunzhi did indeed reempower eunuchs, so soon after the Ming fall. In chapters 3 and 4 we turn to Shunzhi’s son the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662–1722), a ruler long thought to have cracked down on eunuch power. He is traditionally viewed as having used the Manchu institution of bondservants, men hereditarily enslaved to the Qing rulers, to take over the role of trusted imperial agent traditionally given to eunuchs. Even as the verdict on Shunzhi’s use of eunuchs has been debated, Kangxi’s changes have been credited with decisively forestalling the reemergence of eunuch power. The reality, however, is much different. At the very center of Kangxi’s government was a small coterie of eunuchs who were among his most trusted advisers. They stand as proof that, where eunuch governance was concerned, Kangxi did not preside over a strong break from the Ming. He portrayed his eunuchs as men with very limited powers; however, this was not the case. In fact, as he aged and grew infirm, the influence of some of these eunuchs increased dramatically. During the last decade of Kangxi’s reign, several of his sons engaged in a fierce battle for the throne. Eunuchs were the foot soldiers in that battle, serving their masters as confidential agents, rumormongers, and thugs. Chapter 5 describes the roles of eunuchs in the succession struggle, and suggests the impact of that struggle on Yongzheng’s eunuch-management policies. Rather than crack down hard on

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eunuchs, Yongzheng, ever in search of more rational ways to run his government, created systems to manage them that focused on motivating them to work harder. In chapter 6, we observe him improving their working conditions, rewarding them for good performance, creating a fund for their rainy-day needs, and endowing a temple and cemetery for them on the western side of the city. He understood that there were bad eunuchs, but he also noted the existence of hardworking eunuchs who had toiled for decades in the palace, and who were then turned out with nowhere to go. Finding effective ways to reward the latter and punish the former was the great challenge and achievement of his palace management. Chapters 7 through 9 explore eunuch management in the reign of Yongzheng’s son Qianlong (r. 1736–1795). This long-reigning emperor could not abide what he considered his father’s lenient treatment of eunuchs, which he saw as violating ageold principles of eunuch management. Qianlong’s areas of disagreement with his father’s management of eunuchs and his maneuvers to make them conform to more traditional norms of eunuch management are the subjects of chapter 7. In addition, the chapter explores the growing gap between Qianlong’s theory and practice of eunuch management. His shift toward more traditional eunuch management, real in some of its aspects, was accompanied by tacit leniency in crucial areas In chapter 8, we explore the system created largely during the Qianlong era for eunuch oversight and discipline. While management of eunuchs was in theory the personal responsibility of the emperor, in practice it was delegated. This system of delegating eunuch management had its roots in previous reigns, but reached its mature form in the Qianlong era. The chapter reveals the range of flaws in the system, which eunuchs would be able to exploit for their own benefit. Chapter 9 explores the world Qianlong-era eunuchs were able to create for themselves. In part with Qianlong’s and his court’s tacit approval, and in part with shrewd understanding and manipulation of the system, eunuchs were able to find a world of new opportunities for themselves built on connections and business enterprises. In the end, it was these connections and business enterprises through which eunuchs achieved a new form of power in the later Qing. Clichéd late-Qing sources tell us that eunuchs became powerful at dynasty’s end because of the rise of female power under the empress dowager, or perhaps a bit earlier due, essentially, to the loss of dynastic vigor. Both interpretations point to the usual logic of dynastic decline and the master narrative of eunuch power. Below this superficial level, however, one can see a corps of eunuchs that was essentially the product of Qianlong-era eunuch management. Denied a role in governance, they turned to commerce and connections. That, too, brought a form of power with it. •

•

•

What was once China’s Forbidden City, home to emperors and their families, is today the Palace Museum. Visitors from around the world tour the grounds and

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Introduction

thrill to stories of intrigue and imperial caprice. Eunuchs appear in these stories as well, most often when visitors tour the infamous well into which, it is said, an evil eunuch threw the “Pearl Concubine,” a good-natured consort of the Guangxu emperor who had run afoul of Empress Dowager Cixi by encouraging the emperor to be strong and independent. In tour guides’ portrayals, China’s rulers are allpowerful and capricious, and their eunuchs either menial servants or evil men who usurped power or did their master’s dirty work. This book demonstrates that the story is far more complex. An emperor’s power over his eunuchs was far from boundless. And eunuchs, for their part, lived lives of extraordinary variety. In the pages that follow we correct some of the misconceptions about eunuchs, and explore the limits on imperial power over them. We begin, in the next chapter, with a discussion of the seventeenth-century consensus on the nature of eunuch power, one that would influence and even restrict the policies of the emperors we study.

1

“A Time of Pure Yin” Forging the Seventeenth-Century Consensus on the Nature of Ming Eunuch Power

Of the many Chinese thinkers who pondered the Ming collapse and eunuchs’ roles in it, none were as influential as the three main seventeenth-century scholars discussed in this chapter. Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692), Huang Zongxi (1610–1695), and Gu Yanwu (1613–1682) were the leading scholars of their age. With statecraft among their chief concerns, they shared a commitment to pursuing its development through deeply grounded empirical research. This new scholarly trend arose, in part, as Benjamin Elman has shown, from their response to the catastrophe of the Ming collapse.1 In searching for the causes of that collapse, they blamed factional politics and Ming philosophers’ undue emphasis on speculative philosophy over real-world politics. Yet they also blamed the eunuch problem, and wrote about ways by which future rulers could avoid it. Their ideas play an important role in the rest of this book because these men articulated important benchmarks for eunuch management that would be meaningful for Qing rulers, and for the Qianlong emperor in particular. In subsequent chapters, they will be referred to as having formulated the gold standard for eunuch management. Qianlong may have disliked these thinkers for their single-minded loyalty to the defunct Ming dynasty, but he heeded their message about the best ways to check eunuch power.2 T H E I N F LU E N C E O F M I N G T E X T S

These three men’s writings were heavily indebted to Ming texts, such as Mao Yigong’s 1615 A Study of Eunuchs through the Ages (Lidai neishi kao), a systematic examination of the history of eunuchs from ancient times until the thirteenth century. Mao’s stated purpose was to serve the needs of Ming emperors, who by 27

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Chapter 1

reading the history of eunuchs could better learn how to avoid the threat they presented.3 The work complemented an earlier book by Wang Shizhen (1526–1590) entitled A Study of Eunuchs (Zhongguan kao). A brilliant scholar who passed the highest level of the civil examination system, the jinshi, at age seventeen and became a prolific writer and literary critic, Wang was also known for his courage in standing up to the evil ministers of his day, and for being a trenchant observer of Ming politics and society.4 In the year of his death, a one-hundred-chapter collection of his writings was published; his study of Ming eunuchs comprises the last ten chapters. Wang Shizhen’s steadfast attention to Ming eunuchs in A Study of Eunuchs allowed him to articulate what became the standard narrative of Ming eunuch empowerment and dynastic decline. His book begins with the stern pronouncements and wise decisions of Hongwu, the Ming founder (r. 1368–1398), and ends with the last year of the Longqing reign (1572). He describes how Hongwu cautiously guarded against eunuch encroachments, regulating their ranks, clothing, access to storehouses—and, most important, their access to political and military power. In describing Hongwu’s achievement, Wang’s account culminates in the statement made by that emperor in the seventeenth year of his reign: “In matters of government, one should be cautious to guard the separation of inner and outer.”5 Eunuchs should remain on the inside, and have no access to any “outside affairs,” be they military, official, or even geographically located outside the palace. In the remainder of the book, Wang Shizhen chronicled the slow but certain dismantling of the stern rules that Hongwu had put in place, and by implication the erosion of the boundary between inner and outer. Even the actions of loyal eunuchs, in Wang Shizhen’s eyes, led to the subsequent overstepping of boundaries because they broke down the inner/outer dichotomy. Zheng He, the loyal eunuchadmiral who commanded early-fifteenth-century naval expeditions at the command of the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–1424), is portrayed as a problematic figure. Wang says of him: “The eunuch Zheng He was ordered to lead an army of twentyseven thousand men in the western seas, to make bestowals on the states of Calicut and Malacca. It was at this point that eunuchs first became involved in the military.”6 Using the example of this famously virtuous eunuch, Wang showed that his ostensibly laudatory involvement in outer affairs ushered in an era in which eunuchs meddled in the military, to the detriment of the dynasty. Mao Yigong’s and Wang Shizhen’s writings directly influenced the philosophers in this chapter. Gu Yanwu’s discussion of eunuchs, for example, relied extensively on many of the same sources used by Wang Shizhen, and cited him by name.7 Indebted though they were to previous scholarship, the three thinkers discussed in this chapter also learned about eunuchs a harder way. To varying extents, each of them had personally experienced the effects of Ming eunuch excesses, which lent power and urgency to their views. The sections that follow thus describe not only

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their writings, but also their experiences, to help lay the groundwork for understanding the impact of Ming precedents on Qing eunuch management. WA N G F U Z H I : TA K I N G SM A L L C OM F O RT I N T H E C YC L E S O F H I ST O RY

We begin with Wang Fuzhi—a stern loyalist to the lost cause of the Ming, a devoted son, and an important philosopher. Wang was twenty-five when the capital fell, first to the rebel Li Zicheng, then to the Manchus. His own hometown, Hengshan, in what would become Hunan Province, was also devastated in the Ming–Qing transition. Fiercely opposed to the Manchu conquest despite the problems in Ming rule, Wang raised an army in Hengshan in a failed attempt to fight the Manchus. After his defeat he followed the Prince of Gui, a claimant to the Ming court who would be dubbed the Yongli emperor.8 Hardly worthy of the Mandate of Heaven, this court replicated the problems that had plagued the final days of Ming rule, including brutal factionalism, ineffectual rule, and eunuch power.9 After the frustrations of trying to serve this court, Wang Fuzhi abandoned it, and wrote a history of the period entitled The Veritable Records of the Yongli Reign (Yongli shilu).10 These records contain remarkable biographies of the eunuchs he encountered while in service to the court. Their faults, their ability to delude the prince and to intimidate officials, and, perhaps most important, their very different and sometimes seemingly opposing personality traits formed essential impressions on Wang that would influence his scholarship on eunuchs. Here we meet the virtuous but largely ineffectual eunuch Li Guofu, adopted son of another virtuous eunuch, Han Zanzhou. When his father retired, Li took his place, managing affairs in the palace and being awarded the coveted title of Courageous Guard (Yongwei). A malevolent official named Ma Shiying grew to hate Li Guofu, and also wanted to win the title for his young son. Ma was also intent on debauching the prince, and would organize sex plays in the palace for his amusement. Before each of these plays, Li Guofu would tearfully plead with the emperor not to take part. Li was no match for Ma, however, who outsmarted him with a simple ruse, using false information to lure him out of the palace for an extended period of time. With Li Guofu away, Ma Shiying was able to wrest the position of Courageous Guard from him.11 The image of Li Guofu in tears becomes a kind of leitmotiv in the eunuch’s biography. So direct is his loyalty to the Ming ruling house that, crying loudly again and again, he pledges to serve the prince in his old age, living by the side of the grave if he has to, with only the fox spirits as his dining companions. He cries loudly when describing not only the destruction wrought upon the grave of Hongwu, but also the state of the ornamental trees around the grave, which local people had tried to preserve, but then chopped down out of desperation during the period of destitution that accompanied the end of the Ming.12

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Chapter 1

Wang Fuzhi’s portrait of Li Guofu is thus of a man whose character is one of a very particular brand of loyalty, that of a eunuch. Lacking in yang energy, he exhibits an overwhelming sentimentality and devotion to the prince that is admirable, but ultimately useless. Unable to stand up and defend the prince’s interests, he is able only to pledge devotion to him. Wang Kun, another eunuch described by Wang Fuzhi, presents a dramatically different view of eunuch personality, but one that, in the logic of Wang Fuzhi’s view of eunuchs, was nonetheless consistent with the perceived effects of castration. Wang Kun was somewhat literate, but his real skills were treachery and currying favor with his superiors. The Prince of Gui favored him, relying on his literacy to draft edicts. When an official criticized the prince for using a eunuch as a senior official, the prince grew enraged and had the official cashiered. Emboldened by the prince’s support, Wang Kun grew increasingly angry and oppressive, and no officials dared to speak against him. His role drafting edicts was formalized soon after, when he was given the title of Brush-Wielding Eunuch in the Department of Ceremonial (Sili bingbi taijian). With the power to draft edicts, he usurped control of state politics and engineered the theft of public monies. Thus it was that so soon after the Ming collapse, the remnant court was replicating the same mistakes that the Ming had made—in this case, allowing eunuchs to wield the brush, and thereby become involved in politics and governing.13 Even before his experiences with the Yongli court, Wang Fuzhi had felt the impact of eunuchs on his life. His father, Wang Chaopin, had been an able student, and although he did not achieve the jinshi degree, he managed to obtain a position in the Imperial Academy following the accession of the Tianqi emperor. That was the era in which the eunuch Wei Zhongxian came to power, however, and politics were so corrupt that the elder Wang could have obtained an official position only by bribery, which he refused to do.14 In his writings, Wang offered an explanation for the fall of the Ming that was both philosophically consistent and attuned to historical events. In so doing, he dissected the role of eunuchs in dynastic decline. As Ian McMorran noted, Wang Fuzhi was “constantly thinking in terms of balance and harmony achieved through the resolution of contraries, and images of balance and harmony occur over and over again in his writings.”15 He related balance and harmony to the notions of yin and yang, the female and male principles that governed the universe. These forces were complementary, in part, because each contained something of the other, and each was in a constant state of flux into the other. Yang was not pure male, and neither was yin pure female. This view was evident in his reading of the Book of Changes (Yi jing), the ancient divinatory text that had long been taken as embodying truths about the flow of history. In it he found comfort in the cycles of history that now gripped him. Dynasties went through periods of rise and decline, and an individual actor was unable to stem the tide of history. He or she would simply

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have to wait for those who, in times to come, would bring about a new dynastic order.16 While the movement of yin and yang propelled history through its cycles, at the nadir was the yin moment. Wang Fuzhi described this moment in his commentary on the hexagram kun in the Book of Changes.17 The hexagram, which is depicted as three yin lines above three yin lines ( ), represents a moment of intense yin energy. Even still, there were yang elements at work that kept heaven and earth in motion, with heaven emitting and the earth receiving. Wang wrote ominously, however, of another moment: the point at which the hexagram kun is governed by pure yin energy. In this darkest of moments, the movement of yin and yang ceases. In a time of pure yin, the yang is hidden and is not seen. Heaven is closed and does not emit; the earth is closed and does not receive. It is a time when the ice is thick [that is, a time of great difficulty]. It is a time of the Eastern and Northern Barbarians [Yi Di], a time of women in power, and a time of eunuchs. The wise man hides himself at these times. Although he may speak wise words and perform noble deeds, he may not seek to raise his reputation. In the case of Yao Shu [chancellor to Empress Wu Zetian, China’s only openly ruling empress] and Xu Heng [a Confucian educator who served the Mongols], they both chirped out their knowledge of the Way. Like plums in the depth of winter, they were equally ugly.18

The scenario described by Wang above was certainly meant to reflect what he saw take place in the Ming–Qing transition, when the yin energy was so ascendant that men should hide their talent rather than serve. Those who served when they should have refrained from doing so only discredited themselves. His depiction, however dark, still held out hope, for no matter how dark the moment he described, the cycles of yin and yang ensured that this time, too, would pass. Wang Fuzhi took pains to explain how these notions of yin and yang were expressed in the body of the eunuch, bringing about the dangers to the realm. Castration, he wrote, upset the physical production of yin and yang in the eunuch’s body. “The yin and yang energies within the body become disrupted,” he wrote, “and the body atrophies. . . . For this reason, when sons are castrated their voices warble like birds, and they are hairless as monks.”19 These physical changes, which made eunuchs predominantly yin in nature, also resulted in undesirable social characteristics. Because eunuchs were unable to reproduce, they had no one to care for them when they got old, no one to bury them when they died, and no one to sweep the grass from their tombs. As a consequence, they were willing to risk death to make a name for themselves, because they had no ties to the world.20 In Wang Fuzhi’s writing, the unnatural disruption of yin and yang in the eunuch’s body inscribed itself not only onto the times in which they lived, but also onto the geography of the court. Like Wang Shizhen, Wang Fuzhi believed that maintaining

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the boundary between inner and outer was essential to the health of the dynasty. When yin was in ascendancy, its forces—women and eunuchs—were venturing into outside affairs. This connection allowed Wang Fuzhi to make sense of the problems that had plagued not only the Ming, but also great dynasties in earlier Chinese history, and it allowed him to highlight the importance of human agency. The cycles of yin and yang might have their own logic, but the emperor became complicit once he refused to keep yin forces where they belonged—on the inside. This explained, in Wang’s mind, why women and eunuchs in power inevitably led to disaster. Wang explained, in practical terms, how it was that yin, the weaker of the two forces, could triumph over the stronger yang. Quoting a line from the ancient Daoist classic The Laozi, Wang writes, “The softest things in the world can overcome the hardest things in the world.” Explaining the quotation, Wang wrote that yin, associated with women and eunuchs, could overcome yang, the emperor and outer court. When the emperor retreated to the inner court and there became preoccupied with amusements and casual conversation, he began to lose his own essence (qi). It was in this way, Wang Fuzhi wrote, that Tang eunuchs became ten times more powerful than those of the Han, and were able to turn the emperor into nothing more than their dog or pig.21 While Wang Fuzhi grouped women and eunuchs together as those who should not be permitted to transgress the boundary between inner and outer, he clearly saw eunuchs as the greater threat to a dynasty. As with other things he said about eunuchs, Wang Fuzhi’s analysis is based both in his philosophical understanding of yin and yang, and in his practical observations of the Ming and earlier dynasties. His analysis also placed the primary onus on the emperor, who was obliged to maintain the separation between inner and outer. Problems began, Wang Fuzhi wrote, when officials and the emperor began to grow distant. This distancing occurred when emperors turned to eunuchs rather than to their officials to accomplish their goals. In the Eastern Han dynasty, for example, one emperor wanted to get rid of a troublemaking imperial relation. Ashamed to discuss the matter openly with his officials, the emperor turned to his eunuchs. Elsewhere, Wang described the same emperor as so close to his eunuchs that he lived among them, avoiding his officials entirely.22 He criticized the emperor’s choice, saying, “Eunuchs’ destruction of the Han dynasty thus began with this action.”23 In Wang’s analysis: “The further apart officials and the emperor grew, the more powerful eunuchs became.” As a result, even the most upstanding of officials, who wanted to protect the realm, had no choice but to consort with eunuchs, so that they could obtain the connections they needed. Well-intentioned, even virtuous actions were inevitably destructive, because they led to the breakdown of the natural barrier between outer and inner realms. Speaking of the end of the Ming dynasty, Wang Fuzhi contended that only by consorting with eunuchs could upright officials bring down notorious eunuchs.24

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To Wang Fuzhi, placing military power in eunuchs’ hands constituted the final assault on dynastic power, heralding the demise of a dynasty. Because of eunuchs’ yin natures, their courage, he wrote, was small, and the anger they needed to wage battle short-lived. They appreciated only fine food and good clothes, and when it came time to do battle they advanced like fish, and would hasten to retreat like frightened deer. They talked big, but were unable to live up to their words. When the emperor heard them—men with no military experience claiming they could do battle—he also believed he, too, was able to fight. The result was that the military fate of the empire was put into the hands of those unable to win in battle.25 What were the obligations of officials in such times? We have already seen that in the darkest of moments, according to Wang Fuzhi, a man should refuse an official appointment in order to preserve himself for a time when such service would not be futile. Beyond this, Wang Fuzhi criticized the factionalism that characterized his age. It must indeed have been frustrating for him, as someone who followed the Yongli court, to see the officials who served it lapse so quickly into the factionalism that had plagued the court in Beijing. When that factionalism involved alliances between officials and eunuchs, women, or imperial relatives (as it did in the case of the Yongli court), he criticized it especially harshly.26 Such collaboration, even when inevitable, led to great disorder. The practical mechanism that led to the confusion of inner and outer was flattery. Officials who allowed themselves to enter into that world could not but lose their integrity by being forced to flatter those whom they should avoid. To engage in flattery, Wang Fuzhi wrote, was to be eunuch-like.27 In taking this position, he repeated the famous phrase of Mencius, quoted in the introduction, in which the great philosopher called flatterers those who acted as if they had been castrated. Instead, a scholar should be willing to speak the truth—at times even impetuously. Only then could eunuchs be kept from interfering in the course of legitimate rule. H UA N G Z O N G X I : T H E T H R E AT P O SE D B Y T H E SH E E R N UM B E R O F PA L AC E E U N U C H S

Like Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi well knew the misdeeds of which Ming eunuchs were capable. His father, who had earned his jinshi in 1616, was a member of the Donglin faction. This group waged a life-and-death struggle against Wei Zhongxian and his allies, in which many Donglin men lost their lives. In 1623, the fourteen-sui Huang Zongxi, who had just passed the shengyuan, or first-level examination, traveled with his father to his official post as censor in Beijing. During their time in the capital, some of the most prominent members of the anti-eunuch faction came for secret meetings at the Huang residence. Among them was the censor Yang Lian, whose denunciations of Wei Zhongxian would eventually topple the eunuch from power. As Tu Lien-che noted, “At an early age the son was initiated

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into the intricacies of contemporary politics.”28 The father and son’s stay in Beijing would last only two years. In 1625, the elder Huang was dismissed from office for criticizing Wei Zhongxian and his party. He was able to return home, but within a year he was arrested and escorted under guard to Peking, where he was imprisoned. Soon after, in the summer of 1626, he was executed.29 Angry though he was at the execution of his father, Huang Zongxi bided his time to seek vengeance. His chance came two years later, when the Tianqi emperor (r. 1620–1627) died and his younger brother, the Chongzhen emperor, was enthroned. Huang set out for Beijing with an awl hidden in his sleeve to exact revenge on his father’s enemies. His plans were foiled by the death of Wei Zhongxian, who had committed suicide before Huang reached the capital. Nevertheless, as William Atwell relates, Huang “engaged in a series of spectacular acts to avenge the murder of his father. He stabbed two ex-officials as they were being questioned at their trial, cut the hair of another political opponent and buried it as an offering to his father, and led the sons of other Donglin martyrs in a memorial service at the gates of the imperial prison.”30 Like Wang Fuzhi, when the Ming fell Huang Zongxi took up the cause of Ming loyalism. He traveled to Hangzhou to help raise troops. Later, he fought with remnants of the Ming ruling house, constructing barricades in the mountains south of his home against the Manchu invaders and serving for a time in the courts of two different Ming princes.31 Once the Manchus decreed death for Ming loyalists and their families, Huang, worried about his mother’s safety, gave up the cause of active Ming loyalism and turned to a life of pure scholarship.32 In his writings, Huang Zongxi naturally had a great deal to say about the role of eunuchs in the demise of the Ming. Like Wang Fuzhi, he placed the responsibility for managing eunuchs squarely on the shoulders of the emperor, but he framed his argument differently. Both scholars began from the assumption that eunuchs were by nature evil. To Wang Fuzhi, eunuchs’ evil nature demanded that emperors stay on constant guard against them. Huang Zongxi, in contrast, based his argument on simple numbers. The evil caused by Ming eunuchs came in direct proportion to the numbers of them that were in the palace. When there are large numbers of eunuchs in the palace, they will inevitably cause trouble. They are, Huang wrote, “like a fire hidden under a pile of kindling wood.”33 On its face, Huang Zongxi’s argument defies logic. While there were indeed tens of thousands of eunuchs in the late Ming—one scholar says as many as a hundred thousand—their faction drew strength not from numbers, but from the connections a small group of them maintained with the Tianqi emperor (through Wei Zhongxian) and with key members of the bureaucracy. Indeed, there is no evidence that the life of the ordinary eunuch was any better during the height of Wei Zhongxian’s power than during periods when eunuchs were carefully controlled.34

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In calling for the emperor to have fewer eunuchs, however, Huang was making a moral argument about the emperor’s duty to be frugal. Eunuch problems were a direct consequence of the emperor caring more about his personal pleasure than the ruling of the realm. The more women and palaces he had, the more eunuchs he needed. In ancient times, he argued, responsible men ruled, and did so to benefit the realm.35 Later rulers looked on being emperor as something they did for their own pleasure. These men spent lavishly on palaces, women to fill them, and eunuchs to watch over them: “Having built themselves splendid palaces, there was nothing for it but to fill them with women. Having acquired so many women, there was nothing for it but to have eunuchs to guard them. One thing just followed another.”36 If a ruler wanted to avoid eunuch problems, he should reduce his desire for pleasure. Like Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi also believed in the strict separation of inner and outer, and believed that eunuchs’ overstepping the boundaries of the inner court had been the source of the dynasty’s disaster. On several occasions, Huang wrote about the Chongzhen court, noting that even though Wei Zhongxian had been toppled from power, the eunuchs were still overstepping their rightful places by becoming involved in outer-court politics—in part because the Chongzhen emperor had sought to use his own eunuchs to root out the remnants of Wei Zhongxian’s party. Such actions defied ancestral rules that mandated the separation of inner and outer, and that prohibited eunuchs from even befriending officials.37 Huang lauded the actions of a scholar who, when he learned that the eunuch Zhang Yixian sought to superintend two ministries, protested in strong language to the emperor. He urged the emperor to forbid the officials of the two ministries from having anything at all to do with eunuchs, or even from knowing them well enough to recognize their faces. Eunuchs for their part should be barred from setting foot in the two ministries.38 Huang thus praised this official for his emphasis on the literal separation of inner and outer. To Huang’s thinking, the problem with the confusion of inner and outer during the Ming was also that eunuchs and officials had crucially different roles to play. The role of the eunuch, Huang wrote, was to be the slave, and to therefore anticipate and satisfy the ruler’s every whim. The official’s role, however, was to be teacher and friend to the ruler, and therefore to be honest in pointing out the ruler’s mistakes.39 When eunuchs told the emperor what to do, they were guilty of being impudent. When officials toadied to the emperor and failed to speak their minds, they were acting as slaves. Both of these were dangerous for the health of the state. What was true of the emperor was also true of his sons, who were to be protected from the yin forces in the palace. Huang argued that on reaching age fifteen they should be sent to study with the sons of high officials: “They should be informed of real conditions among the people, and be given some experience of difficult labor and hardship. They must not be shut off in the palace, where

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everything they learn comes from eunuchs and palace women alone, so that they get false notions of their own greatness.”40 Huang Zongxi steadfastly refused to serve the Manchu regime, but his opposition to Manchu rule did not become the lifelong obsession of some of his peers. Indeed, the consensus of most historians, including Ying-shih Yü, is that Huang’s opposition to the Manchu regime softened over the years. Huang may even have been positively impressed by what he saw of Manchu rule. Though the Manchus were barbarian rulers, their new government appeared free of the ills that had beset the Ming. In any case, by the 1680s Huang, then a man in his seventies, was seeking favors from Qing officials for his sons and grandson, who were competing in the examination system. While stalwarts were willing to take much stronger action to oppose the Qing regime—Lü Liuliang, a former friend of Huang’s and an important scholar in his own right, would openly criticize him for his acquiescence—Huang understood that his family would have to survive in the new world.41 G U YA N W U : EV I D E N T IA L R E SE A R C H A N D T H E L E S S O N S O F PA S T E U N U C H E XC E S S

Gu Yanwu had less personal experience with Ming eunuchs than either Wang Fuzhi or Huang Zongxi. Wang and Huang both had fathers who were officials, active in the politics of the time, who strongly opposed the eunuchs and had suffered as a result. In Gu’s case, both his father and adoptive father had less success in the examination system, neither achieving the rank of jinshi.42 Far from politics, they were able to avoid eunuch entanglements. Exactly how much experience Gu himself had with Ming eunuchs is hard to tell, because he destroyed many of his pre-1644 writings. It is known, however, that he was in Suzhou in 1626, the same year in which a famed uprising against the agents of Wei Zhongxian took place. Gu was just fourteen sui at the time, and had traveled to Suzhou from his hometown in neighboring Kunshan in order to sit for his first examination. While he took no part in the uprising, he did make the fleeting acquaintance of Kou Shen, who was thirty-six years his senior. Kou was the prefect of the Suzhou area, and would play an important role in opposing the eunuch forces during the uprising.43 Gu’s encounter with Kou at the exam, and the elder scholar’s brief words of encouragement, stayed with Gu for more than fifty-four years. In 1680, just two years before his own death, Gu would write a funerary inscription for Kou Shen, which was offered on the occasion of Kou’s grave being moved. In it, he offers a lengthy narrative of the Suzhou uprising, praising Kou’s actions.44 In addition to the essay, he composed an encomium for Kou’s grave that read: “Upright and strong, talented and pure. Some knew his love of the common people. When the uprising came, he pacified it with but few words. It is fitting that he lived a long and healthy life, and that his sons and grandsons are

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abundant and flourishing. We newly found this graveyard, which was comfortable and beautiful. Should not this graveyard help him return to his original nature?”45 As Willard Peterson has shown, Gu Yanwu’s foster mother had an immense impact on him. This woman, surnamed Wang, was betrothed to a member of the Gu family, who died at age eighteen before they could wed. She nonetheless went to live with her future in-laws as daughter-in-law, earning her a reputation of extraordinary virtue and filial piety. When the Ming fell, she starved herself to death rather than live under the new government.46 Deeply influenced by his foster mother’s actions, Gu himself became a Ming loyalist. On her deathbed, she admonished her son never to serve the Qing. In respecting her wishes, Gu committed himself instead to empirical scholarship, gathering information from his studies and from his extensive travels, many of which became incorporated into his writings. He used his scholarship to explore, among other things, the causes of the Ming fall.47 His writings also took up the subject of eunuchs, whom he blamed for their role in the Ming collapse. Gu Yanwu first encountered Huang Zongxi’s important work on statecraft, Waiting for the Dawn (Mingyi daifang lu), in 1677. He immediately read it through several times, and found that it agreed on almost every point with his own work, A Record of Knowledge Gained Day by Day (Ri zhi lu). In a letter to Huang praising Waiting for the Dawn, Gu enclosed some chapters of his Record of Knowledge, and invited Huang to write back with his own criticisms.48 Unfortunately, there is no record of whether Huang ever took Gu up on his offer.49 A comparison of their ideas on eunuchs indeed shows many similarities. There was a clear difference between their writing styles. Huang’s writings in Waiting for the Dawn set out a concrete plan for the best way to organize the state. He wrote the work for a future sovereign, most likely a Han Chinese, who would eventually be able to implement his plan. The book thus contains treatises, including one on eunuchs. By contrast, Gu Yanwu’s writings are focused on the meticulous gathering and study of information, with less intervention of the author’s voice. One can easily deduce Gu’s argument, however, from the content of his historical notes and from their arrangement. He drew evidence from across the broad range of Chinese history, with most of it coming from the Ming. If Wang Shizhen had written of Ming eunuchs as an unfinished morality tale, in Gu’s assemblage of evidence it becomes a tragedy. Gu quoted at length from an edict of Chongzhen (r. 1627–1644), the last Ming emperor, which argued for keeping eunuchs in check. Gu’s sympathy for Chongzhen is apparent, because he quoted the edict in full. It is also apparent, however, that by the time of Chongzhen it was already too late for the Ming to control eunuch power. Like Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu made the argument that having large numbers of eunuchs in one’s palace invited disaster. For proof he pointed to the trajectory of

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eunuch power in the Tang dynasty (618–907). Like the Ming, the Tang had begun with a strict emperor, Tang Taizong, limiting the power and numbers of eunuchs. Problems began early in the reign, but blossomed during the reign of Tang Xuanzong (r. 712–756), the Tang emperor who was, famously, the lover of Yang Guifei. This emperor was so consumed with pleasure that the number of palace women in his reign reached forty thousand. Consequently, he needed many thousands of eunuchs to watch over them. Like Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu argued that the ruler’s desire for women and sex leads to the empowerment of eunuchs. An emperor who wished to control his eunuchs, Gu said, should limit his number of womenfolk.50 Gu also emphasized the ruler’s obligation to maintain the division between inner and outer realms, buttressing his arguments with a larger number of examples than any of his forebears offered. He, too, believed that problems in the Ming could be traced to the Yongle reign (1402–1424), when eunuchs were employed as official advisers and were even sent as ambassadors to other states. Following the lead of Wang Shizhen, Gu criticized Yongle for dispatching the eunuch admiral Zheng He on his naval missions.51 When eunuchs were dispatched outside, Gu wrote, it was all too easy for them to use their imperial commissions to intimidate people and to pursue corrupt ends. The Yongle emperor sent his eunuch Li Jin to Shanxi to collect samples of smallpox, which were used in variolation (an early method of inoculation).52 The eunuch forged an imperial edict, and even went so far as to direct military actions. “Thus it was that he began to manipulate power for personal ends,” Gu reported.53 He also noted that Hongxi (r. 1424–1425), the emperor who succeeded Yongle, continued the practice of sending eunuchs out on missions, although he tried to limit the extent of their excursions by requiring that they return within ten days. Under his orders, these eunuchs procured precious stones, gold, pearls, precious lumber, and incense.54 Subsequently, the eunuch situation deteriorated under Xuande (r. 1425– 1435). A censor during his reign named Yin Chonggao described the vast corruption of eunuchs who were sent out to purchase goods for the court. “ ‘The items they purchased meant almost nothing to the court, but the cost to the people who had to supply them was great,’ ” Gu quoted the censor as commenting.55 Yongle was responsible, Gu Yanwu wrote, for allowing eunuchs into politics and into the military. This emperor flagrantly ignored the wise edicts of the first Ming emperor, and allowed eunuchs into his inner circle of political advisers. Soon, they came to enjoy more political influence than his top officials. Indeed, Gu Yanwu noted, there were cases in which high officials sought to secure teaching positions in the close circle of the emperor so that they could win the confidence of eunuch officials. Great battles were lost, Gu contended, when eunuchs were sent out on military missions. In making this argument, Gu was stating what was an obvious point to many of his contemporaries, and to Wang Fuzhi and Huang Zongxi. He marshaled

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many more examples than other scholars, however, making the case against eunuch interference in the military all the more powerful. He cited well-known, but also obscure events through history in which eunuch involvement in the military led to disaster. He described the military corruption of a eunuch general sent to Gansu Province, whose policy of appeasement was reported to have delayed the chances of defeating a rebellion.56 Maintaining the distinction between inner and outer, according to Gu Yanwu, required not only that eunuchs remained physically in the palace, but also that they remained consigned to their proper roles. Gu quoted edicts that said eunuchs should be limited to mundane tasks such as guarding the doors, sweeping the courts, and serving food.57 They needed to maintain the proper attitude of humility, and their official ranks needed to be kept low. On this latter point, Gu referred to edicts of the first Tang and Ming emperors, which said that eunuchs should not rise above the fourth rank.58 Officials since the Han dynasty were ranked one to nine, with one being highest. Each rank was subdivided into two, to create a total of eighteen. Emperors grappled with the question of whether eunuchs should also be ranked. To perform their proper roles, Gu asserted, eunuchs had to be kept from assuming roles occupied by normal men. If they became like officials and military officers, they threatened the proper order. If eunuchs were allowed to rise above the fourth rank, it meant they would wear official robes and be more like court officials. If they established ancestral temples, a practice begun by Wang Zhen in the fifteenth century, it meant they were replicating normal family lives of males.59 All these actions constituted transgressions of their proper roles. With the establishment of ancestral halls, eunuchs’ ersatz progeny—nephews or strangers’ sons whom eunuchs adopted to carry on their family lines—could make sacrifices to them. Once they had family, they had ties to individuals on the outside whose interests they would have to serve. Furthermore, their family members would multiply, as would their lands and possessions. “Although their bodies will be on the inside, their hearts will certainly be on the outside,” Gu wrote. “Then inner and outer will be the same, and disaster and chaos will have their beginnings.”60 Gu Yanwu emphasized the significance of eunuch literacy, which to him represented the main pathway to eunuch interference in government. He included examples from the Ming in which literate eunuchs caused problems for the dynasty. He also dug further back in history, however, to find other proof that literacy led to eunuch interference in government and, ultimately, to dynastic decline. According to Gu, the first ruler to allow eunuch literacy was Empress Hexi in the Han dynasty. She called on her trusted ministers to teach eunuchs classics and histories in her palace. In the Wei and Jin periods, King Fujian selected some particularly intelligent eunuchs and court maids to be educated by learned scholars. In the Sui dynasty, an official close to the emperor was ordered to teach

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eunuchs, but he felt ashamed and so would periodically plead illness.61 Educating eunuchs led to their “wielding the brush” to draft imperial edicts. Literate eunuchs who wielded the brush, Gu said, were then no different from members of the Grand Secretariat. Furthermore, once imperial power was diverted, it was impossible to recover it.62 In discussing the effects of castration, Gu Yanwu took a very different approach from Wang Fuzhi, who described its effect on the yin and yang energies within the body. Ever the consummate historian, Gu reminded his readers of the origins of castration as a cruel and savage punishment inflicted upon prisoners of war or criminals. It was also used at the whim of emperors to punish officials who offended them. “Cutting off people’s procreative abilities in this way,” he wrote, “should not be tolerated in cases of innocent ordinary people.”63 Gu reserved his harshest criticism for the practice of self-castration, by which he meant people having the operation performed on themselves, their children, or others without imperial authorization. He devoted a lengthy essay to the topic, in which he critiqued the practice, in his Record of Knowledge Gained Day by Day. Gu quoted a memorial written by Wu Ji (1013–1062), erudite of the chamberlain for ceremonials, who had strongly criticized the practice: The families of eunuchs compete to have their sons extirpate their humanity and cut off their fate. What crime have these boys committed, that they should fall victim to the saw and knife, and from them [be as one who has] died a premature death? If these boys died from illness, everyone would sympathize with them. How much more do they deserve sympathy if there is no illness? In their wisdom, the ancient kings detested castration even for those who committed crimes. How much more [should it be detested] in the case of the innocent?64

All these things must have been on Gu’s mind when, in 1679, he traveled through some of the poorest areas of the northern provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan.65 In the opinion of some writers, for whom Gu Yanwu was a fierce patriot who never lost hope for a Ming revival, the true purpose of his trip was to test out the vulnerabilities of the Qing.66 But if his trip had a strategic purpose, he never mentioned it to his nephew Xu Yuanwen, with whom he corresponded while on the trip. Unlike Gu, who had refused to serve the new government, his nephew sat for the exams, even passing in first place, and became a jinshi during the Shunzhi reign.67 Gu Yanwu warned his successful nephew that high officials serve their ruler in accordance with the principles of the Dao—in other words, by doing what is right. If they are unable to do so, they cease their service, lest they bring shame on their progeny.68 As if to suggest that the new government was not ruling in accord with the Dao, he points to a particularly egregious case of unauthorized castration. Many of the areas in which he traveled were experiencing drought, and he learned

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that a local magistrate was buying boys from southern Shanxi and castrating them to use as household servants. One of the boys had even died from the procedure.69 One’s goal is to rectify the court, he said, by first rectifying the rank-and-file officials; but how could one do that in such an inhumane world as this? C O N C LU S I O N

Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi, and Gu Yanwu achieved something remarkable: a synthesis of collective wisdom on the subject of eunuchs, and an articulation of a set of principles for their governance that would endure through the rest of the Qing period. Theirs was a passionate response to the eunuch problem, built not only on a methodical reading of texts but also on their personal knowledge of the horrors of Ming eunuch excesses. Yet in the nature of their achievement lay its limitations. Their allegiance to earlier scholarship kept them from proposing the radical, but obvious, response to the eunuch problem: doing away with eunuchs entirely. To be sure, Huang Zongxi had argued that the numbers of eunuchs could be reduced to several tens of them, provided the emperor reduced his number of palaces.70 Gu Yanwu had written admiringly of the small numbers of eunuchs prescribed in the Rituals of Zhou (Zhou li), when empresses had only small numbers of eunuch attendants.71 Yet neither could imagine a world without eunuchs. The radical proposal to do away with them entirely was left to a scholar who was a slightly younger contemporary of theirs: Tang Zhen (1630–1704), whose ideas brought him little notoriety; he would achieve none of the fame of the three famous scholars discussed in this chapter. Tang had succeeded in passing the juren examination, and had gone on to a less than stellar official career. His subsequent career as a merchant likewise ended in failure. He spent the last thirty years of his life, however, reflecting on politics and society, building a body of essays that he called Covert Writings (Qian shu).72 In them, he wrote with freshness and originality on the eunuch problem, arguing that, despite the precedent for eunuchs in classical texts, the best way to eliminate this scourge was to eradicate the institution. One possibility would be to use women in place of eunuchs, but this would be made difficult by the strenuous physical demands placed on palace servants. The only real way to eliminate eunuchs, Tang thought, was to do so at the start of a new dynasty, when the newly enthroned emperor, having never lived in a palace and accustomed to a life of hard work, could survive without a fleet of eunuchs to serve him.73 Tang’s unique proposal was also built on his very novel readings of the events of the late Ming. The principle of separation of the sexes was at the core of all ritual obligations. If eunuchs were truly neither male nor female, or if they were female, they could stay among the womenfolk. If they were men, however, they did not belong among women, and, Tang argued, there was certainly evidence of their

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masculine traits. He reported on the rivalry between the eunuchs Wei Zhongxian (discussed earlier in this chapter) and Wei Chao for the affections of Madame Ke, who had spurned the latter for his weakness and chosen the former for his strength. If eunuchs had lost their masculinity, Tang asked, on what basis would Ke have chosen Wei Zhongxian? Tang recounted another story, passed down from his father, who had spoken confidentially with the concubine of a eunuch. The concubine had said that eunuchs were by nature lecherous and unwilling to restrain themselves. During sex they used what remained of their genitals, which protruded about an inch—further proof that their masculinity was not completely eradicated.74 Tang Zhen’s official career may have been a failure, but he certainly got much closer to the Qing government than Wang, Huang, and Gu, who steadfastly opposed Qing rule, and refused to serve their new rulers. In the next chapter, we turn to developments taking place at court, and examine the first Qing reign—that of the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644–1661). Shunzhi’s reign was brief, and indeed his death occurred before Wang, Huang, and Gu did much of their writing. It is an important reign, however, for the history of Qing eunuchs.

2

The Shunzhi Emperor and His Eunuchs Echoes of the Ming

China’s new Qing rulers professed to build a government that would forever solve the problem of eunuch power. Profoundly aware of the disasters Ming eunuchs had caused—but less concerned with analyzing the nature of the eunuch than were the scholars we met in the last chapter—these men adhered to the same core principles: eunuchs needed to be kept from involvement in government; they should have nothing to do with the military; their relatives should be kept from power and influence; they should never become involved in corrupt activities. By enunciating these principles, the new ruling elite would be following in the footsteps of the first Ming emperor, who, as mentioned in the introduction, had cast similar rules into a plaque he had erected in the palace. As also mentioned in the introduction, the Shunzhi emperor, the first of the Qing emperors to rule over China, would, like the first Ming emperor, erect a plaque restricting the power of eunuchs.1 Like the Ming rulers, however, he, too, would fail to keep eunuchs strictly controlled. This chapter is thus not about how the Qing emperors succeeded in setting out on a new course for eunuch management, as other studies have suggested, but on how they failed to do so. The subject of eunuchs in the Shunzhi period is interesting in its own right: it tells us much about this emperor and his ruling practices, and also helps resolve an old debate about the extent to which Shunzhi had reempowered eunuchs. For the larger purposes of this book, however, we note the emergence of a pattern: imperial rhetoric deviating from practice. In the eighteenth century, Shunzhi’s great-grandson, Qianlong, would portray his own management of eunuchs, and that of Shunzhi, in ways that were simply untrue. The seventeenth century thus set an important precedent for what would take place in 43

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the eighteenth, when the gulf between the Qianlong emperor’s rhetoric and practice would unleash a world of new economic opportunities for eunuchs. SH U N Z H I C OM E S T O P OW E R

Born in 1638, Shunzhi himself played no role in the Qing conquest. That task fell to others, beginning with his grandfather Nurhaci (1559–1626), who first conceived of the conquest and won important victories against the Ming in China’s northeast. Nurhaci’s son, Hong Taiji (1592–1643), would strengthen the foundations laid by his father, subduing the strongest of the Mongol tribes, making Korea into a tribute state, and bringing important Ming generals over to the Manchu side. When Hong Taiji died, his territory extended south to the vicinity of Shanhaiguan, where the Great Wall meets the sea. It was Hong Taiji’s brother, Dorgon, who learned that Beijing had fallen to the rebel Li Zicheng, and who led an army to take the city from him. However, Dorgon did not become emperor himself; rather, his six-year-old nephew and the son of Hong Taiji, Shunzhi, was chosen as a compromise between competing interests, with Dorgon emerging as the most influential of his two regents. Shunzhi came to real power only seven years later, following the death of Dorgon. His reign would be short, lasting for just ten years before he succumbed to smallpox in 1661, at the age of twenty-four. At Shunzhi’s death the tasks of conquest and consolidation were not complete: there were still vast swathes of South China that had not been brought under Qing rule. And there were pockets of resistance, most dangerously among elites who remained loyal to the Ming. These would be problems left to Shunzhi’s son, the Kangxi emperor.2 Q IA N L O N G’ S V I EWS O F SH U N Z H I

From his perch atop the prosperous and secure eighteenth century, Qianlong had little but terse praise for Shunzhi’s management of eunuchs. In a preface to A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, Qianlong credited his great-grandfather for setting the dynasty off on the proper course by carefully restricting eunuch power. Shunzhi had lived during a time when the excesses of Ming eunuchs were still fresh, so he knew to be on guard against them.3 The evidence for his severe restrictions on eunuchs, in Qianlong’s eyes, was plain from his great-grandfather’s order that the aforementioned iron plaque be erected.4 Qianlong might have had a good deal more to say. Following Shunzhi’s death, a group consisting of his mother and the four men who would become regents for his successor, the Kangxi emperor, forged a will in Shunzhi’s name in which he claimed to be contrite for, among other mistakes, a decision to reempower eunuchs by establishing the Thirteen Yamen: a series of inner-court offices that replicated

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the notorious Ming eunuch agencies.5 The passage on eunuchs begins with the erroneous assertion that the preconquest Manchu rulers did not employ eunuchs, and reads: “My forebears never used eunuchs in their enterprise, and moreover the Ming were conquered because they appointed eunuchs. I was fully aware of the harm they posed, but did not guard against it, setting up the Thirteen Yamen and appointing eunuchs to the same tasks as in the Ming, so that they could once again engage in corrupt practices, exceeding even what had been done in the past. This was one of my grave mistakes.” This will was not a secret document. On the contrary, it was meant to be a public mea culpa for the mistakes of his reign.6 Qianlong must have known about it, as he must have known the name Wu Liangfu—a powerful eunuch adviser to the Shunzhi emperor, whose forays into politics certainly transgressed the values that Qianlong espoused. Yet Qianlong, committed to presenting his dynasty as one that had decisively limited eunuchs’ roles, could admit neither. Neither would he permit A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces to contain any evidence of eunuch empowerment by Shunzhi. Whether Qianlong noticed another irony is hard to say. As mentioned above, Shunzhi’s order that an iron plaque be erected in the palace to warn eunuchs to stay out of politics replicated an action of the first Ming emperor, who likewise had erected a board warning against eunuch involvement in government. The Ming emperor’s board would preside over some of the worst excesses of Ming eunuch power, until it was finally taken down late in the dynasty. Shunzhi could hardly have chosen a less effectual symbol of his dynasty’s intention to control eunuchs. T H E C O N T R OV E R SY OV E R W H E T H E R SH U N Z H I R E - E M P OW E R E D E U N U C H S

The Shunzhi period is a shadowy one. Not frequently studied by historians, it has a history that is sometimes difficult to understand, especially where the inner workings of court politics are concerned. Complicating our ability to understand the Shunzhi period is the administrative structure of the time, which is not well understood. In what study there has been of the period, two viewpoints emerge. One view essentially agrees with the Qianlong emperor’s depiction of Shunzhi as having placed limits on eunuch power. The Thirteen Yamen, according to this view, represented not an expansion of eunuch power but a move to control it by limiting eunuchs’ numbers and confining their activities to a set number of welldefined agencies.7 Proponents of this interpretation point to episodes in which the emperor, following the establishment of the Thirteen Yamen, dismissed almost 170 eunuchs from important positions.8 A second, opposing interpretation, however, views Shunzhi as someone who essentially fell into the trap of eunuch power, replicating some of the key mistakes of the Ming dynasty. According to this view, eunuchs grew in number and power over the course of his reign, until “he could

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scarcely escape their influence.”9 Based on a careful study of new evidence, I take the latter view. Solving this debate about eunuchs in the Shunzhi reign would seem to require a deeper understanding of Wu Liangfu, the powerful eunuch who was a favorite of the Shunzhi emperor. In fact little is known about this man who emerged from obscurity to play an important role in the young emperor’s reign, including whether he was young or old, and whether he had served the Ming or was a fresh recruit to the Qing.10 Most commentators agree, however, that he was central to the internal politics of the era, assisting the young emperor in removing the remnants of Dorgon’s faction from power once his uncle had died.11 He may also, some suggest, have led a group of eunuchs who together offset the influence of the emperor’s powerful mother. It is also possible that Wu Liangfu (and perhaps other eunuchs) introduced the emperor to Chan (Zen) Buddhism. If proven, this would show tremendous eunuch influence on Shunzhi: the emperor’s devotion to Buddhism was so great that he invited Chan masters to reside in the capital, showering them with gifts and personal visitations.12 When his beloved consort died in September 1660, the emperor came close to renouncing the throne and becoming a Buddhist monk. He lived just a few years longer, and after his death rumors long persisted that he had not died, but had escaped the demands of the emperorship to live as a monk in the Tiantai Temple, southwest of Beijing.13 How much power Shunzhi gave to Wu Liangfu is not known, nor is it known whether Shunzhi ultimately turned against Wu. Meng Sen, one of the greatest historians of early modern China, entered into the debate about Shunzhi and the eunuchs.14 Meng, who was forty-three when the Qing dynasty fell in 1911, died in 1937, more than a decade before the establishment of the People’s Republic. Deeply distrustful of the genre of unofficial histories and other miscellanies that provided many people with their view of Qing history, Meng urged a more cautious approach to understanding the past. He lived through a chaotic period in China’s history and did not have access to Shunzhi-era archival documents, but he was a superb textual scholar who unearthed obscurely published sources, and used them to great effect. Meng Sen maintained that Shunzhi had indeed been coopted by eunuch power. His belief was that unlike Ming emperors, who were naive or foolish on the subject, Shunzhi deeply understood eunuchs’ potential to do wrong; but he favored them nonetheless. He was able to condemn them for their underhanded ways, but was unable—or unwilling—to discipline them. All of this, Meng said, was evident in the Qing sources, though they had been altered to cover up for Shunzhi. In what Meng found to be a sanitized version of Qing history, Shunzhi was depicted as decisively clamping down on eunuch power. Indeed, there is no question that in a 1658 edict he criticized the eunuchs for their abuses of power, even going so far as to censure Wu Liangfu. The question, however, is whether Shunzhi was able to

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match action to his stern rhetoric. In the version of the story told in The Records from the Eastern Gate (Donghua lu), one of the most important sources on the Qing period, the account of Shunzhi’s edict castigating Wu Liangfu ends with the sentence “Wu Liangfu was executed shortly afterwards.”15 According to Meng Sen, however, this sentence was a later addition to the text by someone seeking to defend Shunzhi’s reputation. Meng argues that Wu Liangfu was not executed until several years later, following the death of the Shunzhi emperor. For proof, Meng refers to sources that credibly show that just six days before his death, the Shunzhi emperor rose from his sickbed to personally oversee the tonsure of this favorite eunuch.16 According to Meng, eunuch excess was addressed only after the Shunzhi reign, when Oboi (c. 1610–1669), regent to the Kangxi emperor, put an end to it. He abolished the Thirteen Yamen, and executed Wu Liangfu and the Manchu Tongyi, both of whom he saw not only as responsible for bribery and corruption, but also for reestablishing these dangerous eunuch offices. According to Meng, Shunzhi talked about restraining eunuchs, but it was Oboi, and later Kangxi, who took decisive action against them.17 The debate about Shunzhi and the eunuchs has focused on two issues—the role of Wu Liangfu, and the establishment of the Thirteen Yamen. Both are problematic as foci. Official and archival sources rarely mention Wu Liangfu, and those that do, such as The Records from the Eastern Gate, were likely tampered with (as Meng Sen showed). The Thirteen Yamen, too, constitute a flawed focal point for resolving the debate; their archives no longer exist, and reliable sources mentioning these organs of government rarely move beyond the superficial.18 What follows is an examination of fresh evidence, which shows the startling extent to which eunuchs influenced Shunzhi. The young emperor permitted them to undertake official duties that closely followed late-Ming precedents—even as he steadfastly maintained that he was being vigilant against eunuch power. Meng Sen saw an emperor who was unable to live up to his own rhetoric. The evidence presented here goes further; it shows an emperor professing to adhere to a standard by which eunuchs were to be strictly controlled, while actually empowering them. We begin by challenging the notion that there was a sharp demarcation between Ming and Qing as far as eunuchs were concerned, and then demonstrate the important role that Ming eunuchs played in the new Qing world. Next, we examine just one particular topic related to the Thirteen Yamen: the archival version of a well-known document concerning its founding. Changes to the draft document show that an expansive role was being cleverly crafted for Shunzhi’s eunuchs. We then move beyond the traditional points of controversy that have been limited to the Thirteen Yamen and Wu Liangfu, and meet another eunuch whose name has been lost to history, but whose story shows the remarkable range of eunuch influence over Shunzhi. Last, the discussion turns to a Shunzhi

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construction project—the Qianqing Gong (Palace of Heavenly Purity)—showing the ways in which eunuch influence weighed heavily both in the construction of the palace and in the vision for the place of the eunuch in Qing rulership. M I N G E U N U C H S A N D T H E Q I N G WO R L D

In 1644, as Beijing (and with it the Ming dynasty) stood on the brink of defeat, the Chongzhen emperor, last of the Ming rulers, turned to his eunuchs in a last-ditch effort to preserve the city.19 He put his chief eunuch, Cao Huachun, in charge of defenses, and eunuchs were posted to guard the city gates. These efforts were in vain, however. When the rebel Li Zicheng’s forces attacked the city, eunuchs abandoned their posts, and Cao opened the Zhangyi Gate (today better known as the Guang’an Gate) to allow them to enter.20 On April 25, 1644, Li Zicheng took the city. However, his triumph would be short-lived. Within a month his forces were roundly defeated in a fierce battle at Shanhaiguan. He retreated to Beijing, assigning his own men to the city gates. Using only poplar staffs, they quickly drove off the eunuchs and confiscated their money and valuables. One source recounts the flight of the Ming eunuchs: “Eunuchs of high and low station all cried, running barefoot. Defeated and bleeding, they left through the city gates.”21 Soon afterward, Li Zicheng’s forces lost Beijing, and they fled to Shaanxi. Cao Huachun’s opening of the Zhangyi Gate to allow Li Zicheng to enter earned him the condemnation of posterity. It was widely believed that he had betrayed Chongzhen for financial or other personal gain. That Cao immediately switched loyalty to the Qing, becoming a servant of the Shunzhi emperor, seems to confirm his betrayal of his former masters. Careful research by Andrew Hsieh, however, has shown the complexity of Cao’s worldview. Cao was deeply influenced by Confucian values, and although he opened the gates to the enemy, and chose to serve the Qing, he maintained a degree of loyalty to Chongzhen, persuading Shunzhi of the need to build a mausoleum to him, and encouraging the young emperor to deeply respect him. Under the apparent influence of Cao Huachun, Shunzhi grew to deeply respect the Chongzhen emperor’s loyalty to his dynasty, and the loyalty to Chongzhen of one of his eunuchs, Wang Cheng’en. In fact, this first Qing emperor to rule China had a near obsession with Chongzhen. When the emperor traversed Changping County, he stopped at the grave of Chongzhen, where he wept and poured out a libation. He also dispatched his high official Maleji to pay respects at Wang Cheng’en’s grave, which was nearby.22 Hsieh notes that Cao can be credited for Shunzhi’s energetic pursuit of his studies. The faithful eunuch would wait beside the emperor as he read and practiced calligraphy, and the two became so close that the emperor picked up the eunuch’s local dialect. In the autumn of 1651, the thirteen-year-old emperor even paid Cao the extraordinary honor of visiting his hometown in Wuqing, Hebei.23

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The case of Cao Huachun suggests the different kind of loyalty that was expected of eunuchs. They were not Confucian scholar-officials, and were not expected to fight to the death for the Ming or refuse to serve the Qing. There were some very few eunuchs who chose to die with their Ming lords rather than serve a new dynasty—most notably Wang Cheng’en—but even this was a personal rather than dynastic brand of loyalty.24 When the emperor went to commit suicide on Jing Shan (sometimes known as Coal Hill), it was this loyal eunuch who stayed at his side, before himself committing suicide to join his emperor in death. Rare exceptions like Wang Cheng’en aside, after Qing control was firmly established over Beijing, eunuchs easily switched allegiances to the new dynasty. Once they did, they were ready to help the new rulers establish a household that followed Ming models. This was a major concern for Shunzhi. Dorgon lived only briefly in the palace, just after 1644, but then occupied a smaller household to the southeast.25 Shunzhi would be the first Manchu ruler to set up a true palace in Beijing. Moreover, the eunuchs who came to serve him there were a mixture of former Ming eunuchs, fresh recruits, and eunuchs who had served in Shenyang before the conquest. Some may have even been leftover eunuchs who had served the rebel Li Zicheng.26 Almost from the moment he came to the throne, the boy Shunzhi emperor was warned against the hazards of eunuchs. On November 12, 1644, the supervising secretary of the Board of Revenue, Hao Jie, memorialized the throne on the subject.27 Hao had passed the juren exam in 1624, when Wei Zhongxian was nearing the height of his power, and had passed the jinshi in the last years of the dynasty. His father, Hao Hongyou, was a beloved district magistrate of Yanchang County, Shaanxi, who managed to keep his isolated area safe from Li Zicheng’s forces. When he died because of illness, the county seat fell to Li’s forces within the year.28 Inspired by his father’s example, Hao Jie fought bravely against the forces of Li Zicheng, and refused to serve in his court. Hao could never forgive the eunuchs who opened the gates of the city to Li Zicheng, whom he accused of “the disaster of opening the gates and welcoming in the thieves [kaimen ying zei zhi huo].”29 It was perhaps his disappointment with this aspect of Ming rule that contributed to his decision to come over to the Qing side. Hao Jie was influenced by his personal experience in the Ming–Qing transition, but he also based his argument on history. “From antiquity,” he says, “eunuchs [and here he uses a highly pejorative term for them: xingyu, “remains of the bodily punishment”] were charged with doing no more than serving wine or cleaning. They never dared rank among the members of officialdom. It was only at the end of the Ming that they were highly favored and put in charge of defenses.”30 The new Qing rulers, Hao said, were praised far and wide for eradicating eunuch power. Important government functions related to defense, revenue, and storehouses were returned to the hands of officials. Recently, however, when there had been official ceremonies accompanying the promulgation of an imperial edict,

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or imperial banquets, several eunuchs would rush in to kowtow, which brought disgrace to the court. He proposed that the Board of Rites be ordered to keep eunuchs from participating in court rituals. He also suggested that the court return to the early-Ming practice of using a system of ivory tiles to prevent unauthorized access to court functions.31 Though not followed precisely, variations of these suggestions were implemented.32 Despite these warnings, once the Shunzhi emperor came into his own, he found that eunuchs were a convenient way to deal with the technical aspects of establishing his household. After all, they were well familiar with the protocol and management of the Ming palace. While the new Manchu rulers were attempting a sharp break from Ming institutions, the reality of setting up an imperial household, in buildings they had inherited from their predecessors, meant many Ming institutions would continue. Thus the eunuchs performed an important function as bridges between the two dynasties. This pattern of eunuchs helping establish palace life was already evident under the regency. Eunuchs advised on the reestablishment of court rituals—and were essential aids in acquiring the materials necessary for those rituals. To secure the twice-annual orders and shipments of silk from the Jiangnan region, for example, two eunuchs were stationed at a factory there, and tasked with overseeing the manufacture of the fabric and logistics for its transport.33 Eunuchs’ knowledge became essential, too, in answering mundane—and sometimes not-so-mundane—questions about the Ming palace. In May 1654, for example, the emperor wanted to determine how much wax and granulated sugar had been used by the Court of Imperial Entertainments during the Ming—perhaps as a way of guarding against corruption and overspending by his own household. Officials first searched for Ming-period records to make comparisons, but were told that all such records had been destroyed. They then turned to testimony from former Ming eunuchs for the information.34 In a more dramatic series of events, an apparently delusional man surnamed Liu turned up at the palace claiming to be the heir to the last Ming emperor. Former Ming eunuchs were consulted to see if they recognized him, which they did not. The eunuchs quizzed him about the Ming palace, to further expose his fraud.35 Once Shunzhi came to the throne, he went much further than Dorgon in establishing a domestic life with its imperial trappings. For help he turned to eunuchs. In 1652, soon after he succeeded his regents, he issued an order for ceremonial umbrellas, pennants, and fans. So urgent was his need that the eunuch Lu Jiude, stationed in Jiangnan, was ordered not to await the twice-annual shipment, but to commission the items immediately. All items were to be in imperial yellow, the color reserved for the emperor’s use.36 The following year, the same eunuch fulfilled an order for three hundred articles of clothing for the emperor, including his dragon’s robes (woduan longpao).37

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With Dorgon and his faction out of the picture, Shunzhi made a habit of dispatching eunuchs to conduct court business. These missions went well beyond the scope of tasks for organizing palace life. In 1652, for example, the emperor sent eunuchs bearing elaborate gifts to General Wu Sangui, as a reward for his military accomplishments.38 He even used eunuchs as confidential informants on military matters. In 1654 he dispatched eunuchs and officials by sea to spy on Zheng Chenggong, the Ming loyalist who steadfastly refused to come over to the Qing side. They spent twenty-four days in Fuzhou with Zheng, noting that the recalcitrant rebel continued to refuse to shave his head as a sign of submission to Qing rule, and that he still controlled many towns, which he taxed in order to pay his soldiers.39 In using eunuchs in these ways, Shunzhi was violating the rules of proper eunuch governance articulated long before, rules that would become crystallized in the writings of Ming–Qing scholars. This was almost twenty years before Gu Yanwu would warn against the dangers of sending eunuchs on outside missions, yet those dangers had already been well described in Ming writings about eunuchs, such as those of Wang Shizhen. Yet in Shunzhi’s time, it had been literally hundreds of years since eunuchs were prohibited from outside missions. From the Yongle period onward, trusted and high-ranking eunuchs had continuously been dispatched from the palace; Shunzhi was simply following that precedent. If he had qualms about using eunuchs in this way, he could at least comfort himself with the knowledge that he was not using them as military leaders, as the Ming had done. Eunuchs under the Shunzhi emperor maintained their favorable positions in society as well as at court. The Ming had suffered from a surplus of eunuchs, many of whom roamed in great numbers outside the capital. Some of these were men who had castrated themselves in the hopes of joining the ranks of wealthy Ming eunuchs. After the conquest, Dorgon had sought to limit their numbers by renewing a prohibition on self-castration.40 Yet they, combined with the thousands of eunuchs who fled the palace, constituted a powerful force in local society. Moreover, many of them were men of means.41 Some were able to hold onto their wealth, and used their high positions in society to advantage their relatives. In 1654, for example, the eunuch Qizi (who worked in the Forbidden City) got caught up in a hometown conflict. His wealthy uncle Wu Tiran led an attack on the village of a rival, deploying ten boats and more than a hundred men. People were injured, some quite severely, in the attack. Qizi tried to conceal the matter from the authorities, even as he used his status to negotiate peace. Bringing with him a fellow eunuch, he traveled to his village and organized a banquet to seek a cease-fire. Once the truth came out, the court punished him with one hundred blows for concealing the matter.42 Even former Ming eunuchs who were not wealthy maintained their elevated stations. Some held power stemming from connections built up before the conquest. For others, their appetites for wealth and ambitions were simply formed by the

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empowering times in which they had lived, and they were not made to change. These men were key figures in networks that included their natal families and the families they created through marriage, adoption, and sworn brotherhood. LateMing commentators had worried about eunuchs creating these sorts of relationships, but the practice continued unabated. In the Shunzhi reign, nothing was done to curb the power of eunuchs and their families, and the government in many cases supported their rights, even giving them special treatment against non-eunuchs. In July 1655 the grand secretary and justice minister Tuhai reported to Shunzhi on the case of Huo Yingbo, a low-ranking eunuch in the Bells and Drums Office. One of the lowest ranking of the Thirteen Yamen, the office was responsible for providing musical signals at court audiences and during palace entertainment.43 Huo’s elder brother worked as a butcher in their hometown in Baodi County, about a hundred kilometers east of Beijing. This butcher got into a fight with a second captain in the army by the name of Chen Tianpang. According to the butcher’s account, this second captain and his men had been accustomed to buying meat from the butcher at reduced prices. One day, the second captain went in to buy a pig’s head, and accused the butcher of overcharging for it. He took the butcher to his headquarters and beat him badly. The butcher told his eunuch brother’s adopted son, Huo Dongzhu, who related the events to his father when he visited Beijing. Eunuch Huo reported the matter to one of the chief eunuchs, who asked to have the case referred to the Board of Punishments. Despite persuasive testimony from the second captain, the investigators sided with the eunuch’s brother, and the butcher escaped blame. Cases like this show the power of eunuch connections, and the role of the court in granting favorable treatment to eunuchs. Not only did the outcome of the case favor the eunuch’s family member, but so did the chief eunuch’s very power—which no ordinary commoner would have—to transfer the case to the Board of Punishments. This case also demonstrates that the Ming custom of eunuchs adopting sons (yi er) continued in the Shunzhi period— even though it had been a well-known cause of Ming eunuch corruption.44 These dynamics are evident in another Shunzhi-era case, which involved a former Ming eunuch named Zhou Jinzhong and his ne’er-do-well nephew Er Zuo. This nephew, from Bazhou, south of Beijing, was unable to make a living, so his uncle invited him up to Beijing and lent him money to open a shop. The eunuch then learned, however, that Er Zuo had squandered most of the money, and in fact had used it to buy a Manchu woman to be his wife—an action that, although it violated Manchu laws prohibiting such intermarriage, was never raised in the case. The eunuch also learned (from his servant Heizi) that Er Zuo was planning on taking the Manchu woman and moving to Shandong. The eunuch (with Heizi at his side) went to confront his nephew, and found that the Manchu woman had already left for Shandong. The eunuch told his nephew that if he was going to refuse to work for a living, at least he should return the money. Instead of answer-

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ing, the nephew head-butted his uncle. Enraged, the eunuch held him down and ordered Heizi to hit him. The next day, Er Zuo had an epileptic seizure and died. In his confession, the eunuch protected Heizi from blame, and admitted to having ordered the beating.45 The official who examined the body found that Er Zuo had been beaten severely. The area from his right ribs to his hip was completely black-and-blue, and blood was flowing from his nose and mouth. The examiner concluded, unambiguously, that Er Zuo had died from the beating. In its disposition of the case, however, the minister of the Board of Punishments chose to ignore these findings. Instead he recommended leniency, arguing that two confessions had maintained that Er Zuo had a preexisting condition. Eunuch Zhou Jinzhong received one hundred blows— a severe punishment, but far less so than a similar offense would usually merit; Heizi was exempted from punishment. Instances such as these demonstrate that in the case of eunuchs, money and position were able to cross the Ming–Qing divide. They also prove that eunuchs who served the new Qing government in the pro-eunuch climate of the Shunzhi period were treated leniently by their new masters. T H E D R A F T E D IC T O F 1 6 53 A N D N EW R O L E S F O R E U N U C H S

One of the most famous and controversial documents from the Shunzhi period is the edict of July 23, 1653, which announced the formation of the Thirteen Yamen. As noted earlier in this chapter, some scholars have viewed the establishment of the Thirteen Yamen as evidence of Shunzhi’s empowering of eunuchs; others have seen their establishment as circumscribing eunuch power. The edict of 1653 is a vital, yet enigmatic, piece of evidence. Like all edicts, it is written in the first person, using the personal pronoun zhen —the “I” reserved for the emperor’s use. Nevertheless, it is difficult to know exactly who composed the final version of the document, and whose orders it fulfilled. As Robert Oxnam noted long ago, the factional politics of the early 1650s were as fierce as they were complex.46 We know that until his death at the end of 1650, Dorgon was the dominant figure at court, and rulings about eunuchs and other matters closely followed his views.47 After his death, an edict was promulgated giving Shunzhi formal control of the government, but his power was, for a short time at least, still subordinate to that of another—Jirgalang.48 This prince played an essential role in purging the remnants of Dorgon’s faction, but by the time the edict on eunuchs was promulgated in 1653, he was in declining health and influence. The edict on the Thirteen Yamen thus represents a defining moment, one in which a new coalition was forming around the young emperor, and one in which he would be the principal voice. Just how strong and defined his voice was at this point in history, however, and how much

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of a direct role he played in the promulgation of imperial edicts are hard to pin down. Compounding this difficulty is our murky understanding of very early Qing administrative structures. In this period, the central organs of government and the process of imperial communications that would later take shape had not yet formed. The central government consisted of the Six Boards—Rites, Works, Revenue, Punishments, War, and Personnel. These had formed the administrative core of the central government since medieval times, and were loosely copied by Hong Taiji even before the conquest, in 1631.49 Not long after, he created the Three Inner Courts (Nei san yuan), which consisted of the Court of Imperial Historiography (Nei guoshi yuan), the Court for the Advancement of Literature (Nei hongwen yuan), and the Court of the Secretariat (Nei mishu yuan). The last of these was responsible for drafting edicts.50 Late in 1653, when the edict on the Thirteen Yamen was being formulated, three famous Han grand secretaries would have been responsible for presenting a rough draft for imperial review: Fan Wencheng, Hong Chengchou, and Chen Mingxia.51 None of the three had fathers who had served the Ming, so they likely had little in the way of personal contact with eunuch power. Chen Mingxia, however, was a member of the Fushe, a famous literary society known for its opposition to the late-Ming eunuch parties. As a member of that society, he would have been well versed in the classic arguments for the dangers eunuchs posed to government. The draft version of the edict prepared by the Court of the Secretariat survives in the archives of the Academia Sinica, Taiwan.52 Someone long ago, when day-today writing was still done with brush and ink, recognized the document’s importance; on it they wrote: “This is an original draft. It is important to use care to preserve it.” Despite the importance of this original document—and despite the fact that it was then typeset and printed in a Republican-era document series—it has gone unnoticed by historians. Yet it offers a fascinating clue to Shunzhi-era ideas about eunuch management. The document contains the grand secretaries’ draft and the handwritten changes to it that would make up the promulgated version. Shunzhi may have made these changes, although it is unlikely that he was yet personally editing his memorials.53 Instead, the promulgated version reflected Shunzhi’s views (put into writing by others), as well as those of the most powerful members of his faction. As we will see, these voices were more in favor of eunuchs than were those of the grand secretaries who drafted the initial version. The edict begins with an observation of the history of eunuchs. The sage emperors Yao and Shun did not use them, nor did the ancient dynasties Xia and Shang. They came into use only in the Zhou dynasty, but were restricted to sasao (“spraying and sweeping,” the former a reference to spraying water to keep down dust) and watching the doors, and never became involved in outer affairs. It was only in the Qin and Han, the edict noted, that they become powerful. They were given

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titles of nobility and official salaries, and control in the army and the ability to interfere in government, spreading disaster without cease. How, Shunzhi wondered, could rulers be so foolish? By relying on small acts of loyalty and demonstrations of trust, he wrote, eunuchs won over their masters. Each day their relations grew closer until the eunuchs were running the government. Moreover, the eunuchs’ uncles, brothers, and nephews became their followers and were made government officials. The eunuchs then would become corrupt, confusing good and evil, promoting their friends and suppressing those of worth. Their influence would extend into the provinces, where they would bring corruption. To control these excesses, Shunzhi said, he was establishing what would be known as the Thirteen Yamen. Within these offices, eunuchs and Manchu officials of the inner circle (Manzhou jinchen) would serve together. Eunuchs would not be permitted to advance above the fourth rank. That is, they would be confined to ranks four to nine, while Manchus could be ranked one to nine.54 This would ensure that there would always be Manchus who were superior to eunuchs. Eunuchs were also prohibited from leaving the palace, except when they were sent on official business. They were not permitted to interfere with things outside their realm of duties, nor were they allowed to socialize with officials. Their own relatives were to be kept at a distance, and they were not permitted to buy land or houses in the names of their relatives, which would lead to their harassing of local people. Finally, officials and eunuchs were not permitted to develop close ties.55 In style and argument, the edict not only reflects much of the accumulated wisdom about how eunuchs were supposed to be managed, but even deploys goldstandard phraseology in doing so. Eunuchs, when well managed, were limited to the tasks of “spraying and sweeping”; eunuchs who were given military posts were described as “being in charge of the military [dianbing]”; by demonstrating “small instances of loyalty [xiaozhong xiaoxin],” eunuchs were able to win their ruler’s confidence. Deeper inspection of the draft and its emendations, however, reveals subtle changes signaling an expansive and more empowering role for eunuchs. The original draft included this sentence, near the beginning: “Nurhaci and Hong Taiji clearly understood the harm brought by this class of people (i.e., eunuchs) and did not use them, but now inner and outer are unified, with all offices ranked, and eunuchs must be used to serve in the forbidden areas of the palace.” This was amended, and replaced with a sentence that simply stated the dangers posed by eunuchs, but the document retained the clause arguing that they were a necessity of life in the palace. Whoever changed the wording chose not to claim that Shunzhi, by using eunuchs, was departing from the practices of his forebears.56 The next set of changes was the most important of all. The original draft included a provision prohibiting eunuchs from becoming seal-holding officials in any of the Thirteen Yamen. In a government office, the seal-holding official was the

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person in charge, his seals the most important symbols and tools of that authority. This provision ensured that in every office, a Manchu official would be the seniormost official. This provision was struck, making it possible for the seniormost official in any of the Thirteen Yamen to be a eunuch. A related emendation added a condition that eunuchs should be restricted to the fourth rank and below. The original read: “In each of the Yamen, officials ranked two and three must be Manchus, and those ranked four and below must be eunuchs. In cases where the seniormost official [in a Yamen] is ranked four, he must be Manchu, and those ranked five and below must be eunuchs.” This very specific language was struck, and replaced with a sentence that read only, “Officials in the Yamen may be ranked high or low, but eunuchs may not rise above the fourth rank.” The impact of the change was subtle, but important. While eunuchs in the Thirteen Yamen could not rise above the fourth rank, they could be seniormost in the office, provided the other officials were ranked lower. Two other changes effectively diminished the power of a seal-holding official over a eunuch subordinate. An original sentence read: “A eunuch may not leave the Imperial City unless he has the approval of a seal-holding official and is traveling on official business.” This was changed to read simply, “Unless he is traveling on official business a eunuch may not leave the Imperial City.” Another related sentence changed the responsibility for reporting eunuch misconduct. In the original draft, a misdeed had to be reported by a seal-holding official. In the revised version, colleague-officials were made responsible for reporting misdeeds. These changes meant that eunuchs would have more autonomy with regard to their seal-holding official, whether Manchu or eunuch. On the surface, here was still a document that adhered to the gold standard for eunuch management set out in previous chapters. As such, it revealed its debt to the first Ming emperor, who is credited with having created the most stringent rules for eunuch management. A prime example is the restriction of eunuchs to the fourth rank, a rule that began with Hongwu.57 The restrictions on eunuchs’ interactions with officials, the prohibition on their participation in government, restrictions on family—all of these still adhered to the gold standard. The edict diverges from the gold standard, however, in important ways. The first was the allowance that eunuchs, though restricted to rank four, could be the seniormost officials in the office. Second, although the edict paid some lip service to the notion of a separation between inner and outer, it did not ban the travel of eunuchs outside. Third, and perhaps most important, it said nothing about restrictions on eunuch literacy. The Role of Literacy Keeping eunuchs illiterate was a key feature of the gold standard of eunuch management, and Hongwu was often praised for adhering to it. Centuries later, Qian-

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long, too, would note with horror that eunuch literacy had led to the worst excesses of the Ming Directorate of Ceremonial.58 As discussed in the previous chapter, Gu Yanwu began his essay on eunuchs with the subject of literacy, as if to suggest that it was the linchpin of eunuch empowerment. Once eunuchs were literate, they had the means to interfere in government, and even to draft edicts on behalf of the emperor. In Shunzhi’s Manchu–eunuch diarchy, however, eunuch literacy was a necessity. Eunuchs might technically be prohibited from interfering in government, but that did not seem to keep them from drafting edicts on the emperor’s behalf. The windows left open by this edict created a wide space for eunuch empowerment. Thus, while a sharp distinction between Ming and Qing eunuchs was putatively drawn, many aspects of Ming eunuch practices continued. With the benefit of literacy, educated eunuchs were able to wield the brush. Shunzhi-era documents reveal eunuchs who were full-fledged officials. The documents they authored show that their authors possessed both a high level of literacy, and the authorization to memorialize the throne on the same level as officials.59 Management Roles Outside of the Palace Literacy, combined with the ability to travel outside the capital on business, resulted in the creation of a bureaucracy in which eunuchs and officials worked side by side. This is evident, for example, in the history of the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau in Suzhou. When reestablished in 1646, under the Dorgon regency, an acting vice-minister of the Board of Works, Chen Youping, was sent along with a Manchu official, Šangji, and the eunuch Lu Jiude to superintend the agency. Although eunuch Lü was part of the original contingent, his influence was minimal: under the regency, Dorgon had removed eunuchs from positions of power in this bureau and had put power in the hands of ranking officials from the Board of Works. In the thirteenth year of his reign, Shunzhi restored eunuchs to positions of power and ostensible equality with ranked officials.60 Empowering eunuchs in this way must certainly have rankled Suzhou people of the Jiangnan area, since the Weaving Bureau there in the late Ming had been notoriously corrupt, and its workers brutally exploited by their eunuch overlords. Their oppression reached a high point when Wei Zhongxian dominated government. During that time, the eunuch Zhang Zhicong was in charge of the weaving operations in Suzhou and exploited his workers in the extreme. The local magistrate, Guo Bo, took him to task for his misdeeds, and punished him according to the law. The eunuch took revenge on Guo by falsely accusing him of making an unauthorized imperial robe. The eunuch tied Guo Bo to his carriage and dragged him through the streets. Another local man, Xiao Jingtian, after leading a group of men to stop the carriage, slapped the eunuch in the face and knocked off his hat. Cheering spectators surrounded the eunuch and pelted him with roof tiles to prevent him from running away. When he finally escaped, he brought a complaint to the

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emperor, and both Xiao Jingtian and Guo Bo were arrested. Many officials were moved by their plight and petitioned the emperor to lighten their sentence. In the end, Guo Bo was downgraded in rank and Xiao Jingtian was released.61 The two men became local heroes for their actions against the tyrannical eunuch. These memories were certainly stirred up when Shunzhi returned eunuchs to positions of superiority at the Weaving Bureau. The system had Manchus and eunuchs working side by side to prevent eunuch abuse, but eunuchs seem to have had greater power than Manchu officials—even when those officials were war heroes. One such Manchu was General Goko, a member of the Bordered White Banner, who had fought key battles against both the Ming forces and those of the rebel Li Zicheng.62 At the start of his career, Goko had been a regimental commander in the Guards Brigade.63 In 1641, he followed the Qing army to encircle the Ming at Jinzhou, in Liaoning. En route, his brigade halted along the banks of the Xingshan River. When, unexpectedly, the enemy came to engage them, Goko, personally leading the charge, prevailed, chasing them as far as Lianshan. He personally beheaded thirty men and captured thirty-two horses.64 After the conquest of Beijing, Shunzhi assigned this Manchu stalwart the important task of helping to refurbish and design his palace. He made him junior vice-minister of the Board of Works, and stationed him at the Weaving Bureau. In this new, palace-oriented world, however, it was the eunuchs who were able to garner more power. Eunuch Lü was given the freedom to travel back and forth between the capital and the Weaving Bureau, and because of his personal access to Shunzhi, he became more powerful than General Goko. On September 11, 1654, after complaints surfaced about the bureau’s exploitation, the emperor dispatched Lu Jiude to inform Goko that he was to turn in his seal and imperial letter of authorization, close the bureau for two years, and return to the capital. Goko was flabbergasted at this order coming from the mouth of a eunuch. Not wanting to rely only on the eunuch’s words, Goko memorialized the emperor, seeking confirmation.65 In theory Manchus kept eunuchs in check at the Weaving Bureau by being their superiors; in reality eunuchs could attain greater power. WA N G J I N SHA N : A ST O RY O F E U N U C H FAVO R A N D I N F LU E N C E

For those who take the position that Shunzhi reempowered eunuchs, the central character in the drama is the eunuch Wu Liangfu. As the verdict on Qing eunuchs embodied in the Draft History of the Qing (Qing shi gao) noted, it was he who encouraged Shunzhi to establish the Thirteen Yamen, arrogating power to himself and becoming the judge of right and wrong.66 He is thus depicted as the first Qing version of a Wei Zhongxian, slowly ingratiating himself into a naive emperor’s favor until he could become powerful and corrupt. It took Wu’s execution to set

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the dynasty back on course. Focusing the narrative on Wu Liangfu, however, and framing the Shunzhi era as the classic model of an emperor succumbing to a eunuch’s ingratiation, risks obscuring history. Yet getting to the truth about Wu Liangfu is next to impossible. Before Meng Sen’s essay on the period, so little was known about Wu that many assumed that Shunzhi, rather than Kangxi, condemned him to death. The quest to find the real Wu Liangfu is hampered by the fact that he seems to be completely absent from the archival record.67 There was, however, another eunuch at the court of Shunzhi—Wang Jinshan— whose activities are well documented, though historians have not taken note of him. Wang was a member of Wu Liangfu’s faction, and was highly favored by the emperor. Within five years after Shunzhi personally took the reins of government, the eunuch Wang Jinshan was one of his most important officials and advisers. It was only later, in the final years of Shunzhi’s life, that Wu Liangfu would surpass Wang Jinshan in power and influence. Wang’s memorials provide a fascinating view of the role of eunuchs in the Shunzhi reign, and prove the emergence of a government in which eunuchs were key members of the officialdom. The documentary record also allows us to learn much about this particular eunuch’s backstory. Wang Jinshan was a young man in 1655 and 1656, when his star shone brightest at the Shunzhi court. In his early twenties, he would have been a new recruit to the Qing rather than an older eunuch who had served in the Ming palace. It was the misfortune of the death of his parents and brothers, whom he had lost long before, that had driven him to what he termed his “extreme.”68 His only living relative was his grandmother, who had raised him with great care. Wang was the director of one of the most important of the Thirteen Yamen, the Sili Yuan, or Office of the Court of Personnel. Originally, this office had been known as the Directorate of Ceremonial (Sili jian), but the name was changed when the office reached the height of its power.69 The change was likely meant to repair its reputation as the most powerful, hated, and feared of all Ming eunuch agencies. During the late Ming, it had been responsible for overseeing the notorious Eastern Depot, a secret police force that operated a torture chamber within the palace. The new name more accurately reflected the functions of the Qing office, which had to do with selection, promotion, and assessment of eunuchs. Wang’s two immediate subordinates, whom he called his disciples, were the eunuchs Guo Shenxing and Liu Youheng.70 Wang Jinshan’s authority extended to the discussion of eunuch personnel-management policy, and in this capacity he memorialized the emperor with a variety of suggestions about eunuch duties and offices. Wang Jinshan, then, was the author of a body of memorials that envisioned a role for eunuchs as real equals of—and perhaps even superior to—Manchu and Han officials. These memorials, most of which were submitted to the throne in August 1656, were carefully composed to enhance the responsibilities and status of court eunuchs. While the classic model of eunuch corruption envisioned a lone

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eunuch hoodwinking an emperor by slowly gaining his confidence, Wang Jinshan’s memorials instead show a eunuch who was acutely aware of the traditional and institutional limits that had been placed on eunuch power (the gold standard), but who was strategically pressing against those limits. These memorials also show him shrewdly building on the areas left open to eunuchs, discussed above, in the famous edict of 1653. The clearest evidence for Wang’s vision of an elevated role for eunuchs is his terminology. While the Chinese language has many words for eunuchs, each with its own shades of judgment and euphemism, Wang Jinshan’s memorials hardly use them. Instead, eunuchs of the Thirteen Yamen were simply referred to as officials (guanyuan), no different from regular officials.71 His memorials also reveal that he construed his relationship to the emperor as corresponding to the classic Confucian ruler–official model. When Wang begs leave to return home to his ailing grandmother, for example, he uses the classical literary allusion for the son who wishes to provide for an aged parent—“the solicitude of the crow” (wu niao si qing). Wang includes the language of a traditional literary exchange between emperor and official, reminding the emperor that he rules “all under heaven with great virtues of filial piety, benevolence and righteousness.” Shunzhi, for his part, embraces this traditional role, informing Wang that the affairs of his office are too pressing and numerous, and orders him to remain at his post.72 In this interchange, the eunuch establishes himself as an official, with the rights and duties of an official to serve his family, including the right to care for a sick parental figure.73 Yet this filial model was not normally accorded to eunuchs, who had ostensibly given up all rights to serve or see their families. The specifics of Wang Jinshan’s plans for personnel reforms, too, show the new, official-like status he planned for eunuchs. Central to his vision was eunuch literacy. Ming Taizu, we know, had sought to keep eunuchs illiterate, as did the scholars discussed in the previous chapter. The 1653 edict, however, was silent on the subject, which opened the door to eunuch participation in the drafting and editing of imperial edicts. Literacy also granted them access to the Confucian canon, which was essential in their transformation from eunuch to scholar-official. According to Wang Jinshan, in the past, eunuchs had been selected purely on the basis of age and appearance (nianmao), and as a result there were eunuchs who could not even recognize the character ding.74 Instead, he said, the emperor should make literacy the prime criterion for selection.75 The emperor agreed, writing: “This memorial sounds reasonable. Let it be debated and the results reported to the throne; inform the Directorate of Personnel.”76 With the power of literacy, eunuchs would be able to fulfill the function that had given them so much power in the Ming—the authority to write edicts on the emperor’s behalf. Eunuchs who were awarded the title Wielding the Brush (bingbi) would be selected, based upon on their literary skills, and assigned to work in the

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Palace Secretariat (heir to a Ming office of a similar name), which was entrusted with the most confidential of the emperor’s paperwork.77 Wang argued that the status of these high-level eunuchs, whose secret role in the palace was “unlike all others,” should be demonstrated by according them high rank.78 On November 21, 1655, he made this point to the emperor, and asked him to determine a rank for the eunuchs empowered to wield the brush. This, he said, was an essential part of selecting officials: “If your majesty selects someone of talent, then he should put that talent to use. If [your majesty] establishes an office, then that office should have a rank.”79 These were, Wang wrote, among the most important officials (guan) in the palace, but as yet had no rank. Shunzhi agreed, and again ordered the Directorate of Personnel to deliberate and make a recommendation.80 Subsequently, Wang suggested that these eunuchs be awarded the first rank. The emperor’s response was once again that the Directorate of Personnel should make a recommendation.81 The suggestion was a bold one. Even as revised, the edict of 1653 was intended to keep eunuchs in check through the system of ranks (with none to rise above rank four). Yet in these and other memorials, Wang Jinshan argued against that principle, making reference to eunuchs of the third rank.82 He also made explicit comparisons between the ranks held by eunuchs and by officials, implying they should be equivalent.83 Eunuchs’ new status would be recognized in other ways. They would wear official gowns, as they had in the Ming period. At the top rank, seal-holding eunuchs would wear the “three powers” (sancai), representing heaven, earth, and man; and the brush-wielding eunuchs would wear the fallow deer (tianlu), a mythical creature.84 Eunuchs would also participate actively in court rituals, kowtowing to the emperor when they were appointed or promoted.85 There would be three regular opportunities in each lunar month (the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth days) for eunuchs to pay ritual thanks to the emperor (xie en li).86 Wang Jinshan’s memorials allow us to ask two important questions about the Shunzhi reign: First, was there a return to eunuch corruption? And second, was the Shunzhi emperor hoodwinked by his eunuchs? Both questions must be answered in the affirmative. A number of Wang’s memorials deal with accusations made against him, first by Lu Tianshou, and then by Liu Jixiang, both senior eunuchs in the Office of Palace Justice (Shangfang yuan).87 They presented evidence that Wang Jinshan had been forming his own faction, and that among his recruits were Wu Liangfu and Cao Huachun (the famous former Ming eunuch). He had favored Cao, even though he was just one of several eunuchs who had been recommended. He accepted a bribe from Cao and perhaps from other eunuchs, and had even intimidated eunuchs into joining his faction.88 While accusations alone are not evidence of guilt, what makes them persuasive is how feeble were Wang Jinshan’s defenses. Wang’s response, for example, to the

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charge that he had accepted a bribe was that since his accuser had not specified the amount of the bribe, the charge should not be given credibility.89 His response to charges of favoritism toward Cao was equally flimsy. Eunuchs, he said, work together to serve the emperor, so on what basis would he dare to treat some better than others?90 That Shunzhi accepted those defenses without demur shows the influence Wang had over him. The emperor’s rescript read: “According to his memorial Wang Jinshan has been dealing with public matters, and has been accused for no reason. His true state of mind is already set out, and he should keep his position and not be reassigned.”91 This led to five subsequent memorials in which Wang sanctimoniously and self-righteously begged the emperor to dismiss him from office; each time his request was denied. Furthermore, when Wang’s future “disciple” Guo Shenxing submitted a memorial accusing Wang of favoring Cao Huachun, the emperor responded that he had ruled on the matter and that Wang Jinshan would not be impeached.92 Wang’s final triumph over Guo Shenxing is evident from the fact that Guo eventually contributed the first preface to the collection of Wang’s memorials; he had joined his faction and become his disciple. All of this suggests the extraordinary influence of Wang Jinshan. Was it typical Ming eunuch corruption and influence being carried into the Qing dynasty? Perhaps Wang Jinshan was laying the groundwork for such corruption. Or perhaps he was someone who was simply trying to improve the position of himself and other eunuchs at court. C O N S T RU C T IO N O F T H E Q IA N Q I N G G O N G : A N EW O P P O RT U N I T Y F O R E U N U C H I N F LU E N C E

In the Shunzhi-era construction of the Qianqing Gong (Palace of Heavenly Purity)—the largest of the inner palace buildings in the Forbidden City—we see a clear depiction of the role envisioned for eunuchs. This important structure, which had burned and been rebuilt several times, is still extant.93 Later in the Qing it would be used as an audience hall. In the Ming it was used as living quarters and furnished with ten bedrooms. For the sake of security, the emperor would randomly choose a bed in which to sleep each night. The Shunzhi court approved an ambitious plan to renovate it; in fact, many sources described it as the rebuilding of the Qianqing Gong.94 Eunuchs were sent to reside in the Jiangnan region, and as far south as Guangdong, to supervise the fabrication of building materials. Once renovations were complete, Shunzhi dispatched eunuchs to the south to acquire furnishings for it.95 That this huge building was to be used as both living and working quarters for Shunzhi suggests something of the influence of eunuchs at his court. The Qianqing Gong was to be an isolated palace within the palace walls, where the emperor

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could live sealed off from the outside world. This augured a repetition of the worst days of the Ming, when the emperor lived secluded within the inner precincts of the palace, and had no contact with his officials. That the first of the Thirteen Yamen was the Qianqing Gong Yamen suggests that this was to be the most important of eunuch agencies, with wide-ranging powers to serve (and ultimately speak for) the emperor inside.96 Plans for the reconstruction of the Qianqing Gong, and their implications for the life that Shunzhi planned to lead, clearly worried his officials. In a memorial submitted late in 1653, a senior censor by the name of Tulai warned against the growing power of eunuchs. Taking the same position as would Wang Fuzhi, he wrote that increasing distance between the emperor and his officials (as evidenced by fewer audiences with them) resulted in a growth in eunuch power. Of particular concern, Tu noted, were the establishment of the Thirteen Yamen and the proposed reconstruction of the Qianqing Gong, a place where the emperor would be further sealed off from his officials. By referring to the Thirteen Yamen as the “Sili Jian and other Yamen,” Tulai cast these new offices as continuations of the much-hated Ming institution that was responsible for eunuch misdeeds. Tulai acknowledged that it was impossible to have a palace with no eunuchs, but argued that with the availability of officials and Manchu bondservants, there was no need to establish these eunuch offices. In warning Shunzhi about the Qianqing Gong construction project, Tulai began with a discussion of recent weather conditions. The south was experiencing drought, and the north flooding. In the sixth month of the year, the rains came without interruption; houses were abandoned to the flooding and collapsed. The fields of grain were flooded and ruined. The bad weather came at a particularly inauspicious time, because commoners were still suffering the effects of the dynastic transition, and many areas of the country were not yet pacified. In the previous year the government had barely been able to pay the army, and with the bad weather conditions it would be even harder to meet financial obligations. In these circumstances, Tulai wrote, it was only appropriate to temporarily stop the work on the Qianqing Gong. The money saved could be given to the army, until the people were pacified. Though not explicitly stated, Tulai’s argument was suffused with the logic of the Mandate of Heaven. Bad weather was a sign of bad governing, which, if not corrected, risked the collapse of the dynasty. Tulai implicitly argued that an emperor who focused on building a sumptuous home while the common people suffered imperiled his dynasty’s mandate. Moreover, history had shown that an emperor who empowered eunuchs endangered his reign. Shunzhi tried to defend his position. If he had not held audience in some time, it was not because he was falling into the trap of Ming emperors, who had become isolated in the palace and avoided seeing their officials; rather, it was because he

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had been feeling unwell of late, and his lack of audiences was not going to become a habit. As to the construction of the Qianqing Gong, Shunzhi said that it was his office and home, and therefore a necessity and not a luxury. The building materials had been assembled, an auspicious day to begin construction had been chosen, and orders had been issued. As to the Thirteen Yamen, power rested in the hands of Manchu officials and not in the hands of eunuchs, so there was no need to worry. Moreover, the division of eunuch power into many different agencies would act as a check on any one becoming too powerful.97 The very next day, however, Shunzhi had a change of heart about the reconstruction of the Qianqing Gong. High Manchu and Han officials, and even princes, had weighed in, urging him to cease work on the Qianqing Gong. Because this had been a year of exceptional flooding, they argued, monies should be given instead to the families of soldiers who had suffered inundated fields. Shunzhi agreed, halted construction, and ordered an immediate survey of flooded fields so that relief arrangements could be made. He also called on all his officials and courtiers to offer prayers and sacrifices of food and drink, and to personally observe the principle of frugality—a principle that Shunzhi said he himself would follow.98 In mid-February 1655, just after the New Year, Shunzhi planned to resume construction of his palace. He sent the Earl of Soni to perform the rites in the Imperial Ancestral Temple, and officials to offer prayers to the spirits of Taisui and Yuejiang. He also sent an edict for discussion to his princes, high officials, and Nine Chief Ministers. The year before, he said, he had wanted to rebuild the Qianqing Gong. He had remembered, however, that the people had suffered from the flooding, so he gave them relief instead. Now, he said, he was doing official business in the same building in which his wives and concubines resided. He asked for his officials’ opinions on the matter, and invited their criticism, while also cautioning that if construction did not begin soon, the rains would ruin the wood that had been stored up for the project.99 They immediately gave their assent, although construction likely had been ongoing, since the rituals marking the completion of construction took place just four months later. The rituals themselves demonstrate the importance and status of eunuchs as full-fledged officials in the Shunzhi reign. In later periods, eunuchs tended to be invisible in rituals, responsible only for preparatory work such as the cooking of sacrificial meats. In 1658, a court ritual was designed for the traditional welcoming of the porcelain roof animals, believed to possess spirits, that would decorate the roof gables of the newly completed Qianqing Gong and other buildings. The spirits were welcomed to the palace, and received the prayers of high-ranking officials.100 To greet these animals, officials gathered at the Zhengyang Gate, the southern entrance to the inner city.101 The presence of supervising censors and secretaries shows the attention accorded these individuals, who were supposed to keep a watch on government corruption—an ever-present danger with palace construction

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projects. After prayers were offered, in sequence, by General Goko, now Minister Goko; senior officials; and then Manchu Minister Bahana,102 civil and military officials accompanied the roof animals inside to the newly completed Qianqing Gong. Once inside the “inner palace,” eunuchs took their proper place, and their role in Shunzhi’s government became manifest. As the animals were carried in, highlevel eunuchs arranged themselves by rank beneath the seal-holding officials of the Directorate of Palace Eunuchs.103 On the right stood officials of the Board of Works, arranged by rank beneath the minister of the Board of Works. The two groups were in some sense equal, but because the eunuchs were stationed on the left, and the collective reference to their titles contained the word “left,” they were considered senior in the partnership.104 This ritual portrays Shunzhi’s officials, Manchu and eunuch, at work, with eunuchs playing a visible part in government. The ritual took place in the inner palace, depicting eunuchs in their proper places. But the scope of that inner palace was not, as the gold standard required, isolated from matters of government. The inner palace was, in fact, now the seat of Shunzhi’s government. Even before the Qianqing Gong was completed, however, the problems with Shunzhi’s model of ruling became apparent. Any remaining assumptions that Manchu officials working together with eunuchs would serve as a check on eunuch corruption were disproven. A 1655 memorial by the Manchu official Tuhai, following up on accusations of corruption against the Manchu official Tongyi, actually turned up a blatant case of eunuch corruption. Not long after, the original whistleblower, a eunuch named Bi Wanbang, and an accomplice eunuch were found guilty of siphoning off a third of the raw materials from the Imperial Tile Works in Guangdong, where they had been stationed.105 The thefts seemed to be going on openly, with no one stopping to report them. Shunzhi responded sharply, calling for a thorough investigation.106 Even after the Qianqing Gong was completed, eunuchs sent to the south to purchase furnishings were allegedly involved in corruption. The supervising censor Ji Kaisheng, a wealthy man whose family mansion was so large it took sixty men to guard, criticized the dispatching of eunuchs on these missions. Apparently, rumors were also circulating among the common people that the real reason eunuchs were dispatched to the south was to buy Han women for the emperor; if true, this would constitute an affront to Manchu notions of ethnic exclusivity. Ji Kaisheng had heard such a story from a member of his own household, who had recently returned from Tongzhou. There he had met Zhang Jiuwei, department director in the Board of Personnel, whose boat had been requisitioned by a eunuch imperial messenger. The messenger had explained that the boat was needed because “[t]he Emperor [here he used an informal epithet, Huangye] is sending me to Yangzhou to buy women.”107 Incensed at both the suggestion, and the fact that Ji Kaisheng found it credible, the emperor ordered him exiled to Liaodong,

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where he died. Shunzhi also defended himself against the charge, claiming that there could not possibly be Han women in the palace.108 Tuhai also learned of the matter, and evidently found it credible, which likely caused the relationship between him and Shunzhi to sour.109 Following the completion ceremonies, Shunzhi sent his Manchu official Sonin to offer sacrifices to the gods of construction. He read the following prayer: “High Heaven in its benevolence protects the Great Qing, whose brilliant achievement is this shining capital. The construction of the Qianqing Gong is now complete, and all nations celebrate together. With auspicious assistance from the Three Luminaries [i.e., the sun, moon, and stars], this beautiful palace will remain secure forever, its propitious omens endless. Solemnly, we prepare this sweet libation, to manifest our sincerity, hoping and praying you will look down upon us and enjoy this offering.”110 Despite this auspicious beginning, corruption soon began to take its toll. Walking around his Palace of Heavenly Purity, Shunzhi complained about how little he had gotten for his money. In an edict of July 2, 1658, he groused that for the fortune of money he had spent, the construction should be perfect, and it did seem so at first. Instead, there were constant leaks and the walls were slanted. The expensive floor tiles were not even, suggesting that the foundation stones were cracked. He blamed officials in the Board of Works and the Directorate of Palace Eunuchs—in other words, the eunuch and non-eunuch agencies responsible for the construction.111 Two months later, the Board of Personnel met and discussed the list of officials who should be blamed for the problems.112 Whether or not Shunzhi realized it, this corruption, like the pattern of life he was to lead in the Qianqing Gong, followed the patterns of Ming eunuch corruption. Palace construction projects were an area in which Ming eunuchs had long and expertly profiteered, which we can learn about from the story of a Ming reformer. When the Qianqing Gong was rebuilt in 1596 following a devastating fire, an official by the name of He Shengrui, one of the greatest of Ming construction managers, was tasked with overseeing reconstruction of the edifice. The project was massive, and was slated to cost approximately 1.6 million taels. By implementing a series of more than sixty cost-cutting measures, however, He was able to dramatically reduce construction costs, and the building was completed for just over six hundred thousand taels. Among the reforms he instituted was a salary system that paid workers not for the hours they put in, but for the work they accomplished. He also recycled inventory and tools, and implemented a system by which those charged with construction tasks checked up on one another to prevent fraud. He Shengrui also worked very hard to prevent eunuchs from profiteering from the construction. He broke with Ming precedent by refusing to give bribes or gifts to eunuchs. His system also prevented officials and eunuchs from colluding and dividing the spoils. This honesty rankled a great number of people, who expected the reconstruction of the Qianqing Gong to bring money their way. He was falsely

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accused of dishonesty and removed from his posts. In response, he wrote a letter of grievance to the Wanli emperor, protesting his innocence and claiming he had done everything in his power to serve the emperor. Because the emperor lived secluded in the palace, with eunuchs controlling which documents he read, however, Wanli never received the letter, and He Shengrui died a dejected man. The task of restoring He Shengrui’s reputation fell to his son He Zhongshi, who interviewed many who had worked on the project. His interview notes, along with his father’s records, allowed him to detail both his father’s heroic efforts to save money and the elaborate ways in which corrupt eunuchs and officials colluded to profiteer. The book, and its preface by his father’s friend Qiu Zhaolin, give fascinating details on the highly technical means of eunuch corruption. Much of their corruption was done out in the open, and included accepting bribes, misappropriating funds, and theft, but eunuchs also used far more elaborate schemes that involved extracting money from the casting of silver taels.113 Indeed, from every step of the construction—from design to materials acquisition, transport, and worker housing—eunuchs were able to profit.114 In the Shunzhi period some of those same individuals were part of the new government, and they sought to revive those cherished corrupt eunuch practices in the new reconstruction of the Qianqing Gong. Their culture affected the culture of the new government, and new eunuchs and Manchu officials learned from them. Although Manchu and Han officials were complicit in this corruption, it was eunuchs who took the lead. They had a distinct, practical advantage over their new masters in their familiarity with the ways in which the palace had functioned under the Ming. Using strategies they had learned under the previous reign, eunuchs began to profiteer from their official appointments and, in particular, from palace construction projects. C O N C LU S I O N

Historians consider Shunzhi a far less effective emperor than his successors Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong, whom we will meet in subsequent chapters. And given the dramatic changes those emperors made to eunuch management, it is hard to argue that Shunzhi set important precedents for his scions. Gone would soon be the Thirteen Yamen, and the eunuchs Wang Jinshan, Wu Liangfu, and their legacies—replaced by new men and institutions that bore names unsullied by the Ming past. However, Shunzhi set an important precedent in the gap he allowed between the rhetoric and reality of eunuch management. Subsequent emperors differed from Shunzhi and from one another in how they managed eunuchs, but not in the fact that they enunciated a stern rhetoric that diverged from their practices. In the next chapter, we observe that divergence under the reign of Shunzhi’s son Kangxi.

3

“To Guard against Their Subtle Encroachments” The Kangxi Emperor’s Regulation of Rank-and-File Eunuchs

Shunzhi’s son Kangxi was a boy of just seven when he came to the throne in 1661; four regents were appointed to rule for him. Almost immediately, his regents moved against the eunuchs, abolishing the Thirteen Yamen and executing Wu Liangfu. That same year, one of the four regents, Oboi, who would dominate government for the next eight years, began expanding his position of authority. In 1669, Kangxi, by then an audacious young man of only fifteen, had Oboi arrested. Taking the reins of government, he set about further consolidating Qing rule. Against the warnings of his advisers, he began solidifying control over South China, provoking the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories. He also secured Qing holdings in the north against Mongol incursion and personally led an attack against the Mongol khan Galdan. Not all of Kangxi’s successes were military. He worked hard to win the favor of Han Chinese and to entice elites to embrace Qing rule. In the process, he became an important patron of Han Chinese culture.1 His reign, which would last sixty years, is considered among the most successful in Chinese history. Historians have long considered Kangxi’s reign to be an important moment in the history of China’s eunuchs and their management. The conventional understanding is that Kangxi created a new set of palace institutions designed to forever keep eunuchs from positions of power and influence. No longer would they be confidential agents of emperors; instead, that role would go to imperial bondservants, men who were hereditarily enslaved to the Qing ruling house. If the dynasty had set off on the wrong foot when Shunzhi reempowered eunuchs—which some historians accepted and others denied—it was during the Kangxi period, all agreed, that eunuch management became especially strict.2 68

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This chapter and the one that follows challenge this view of the Kangxi emperor’s management of his eunuchs. Looking beyond his tough rhetoric, it contends that while he certainly crafted new inner-court institutions that professed to strictly control eunuchs, both his day-to-day management and quiet innovations diverged from those stated goals. Moreover, despite his rhetoric that eunuchs should be kept from positions of political influence, he maintained a heretoforeunnoticed small group of elite eunuchs at the heart of his government, men who achieved great power and influence. They were highly educated, frequently spoke on his behalf, sometimes even controlled access to him, and were important negotiators and members of his inner circle of advisers. In fact, they had much in common with the Ming eunuchs he professed to disdain. Kangxi-era rules for eunuchs did not apply to this elite few. Like his father, Shunzhi, Kangxi ordained one thing but did another when it came to eunuchs. As was the case with his father, the power he gave his seniormost eunuchs would lead to problems. This chapter examines Kangxi’s regulation of his rank-and-file eunuchs; the next chapter turns to his small circle of elite eunuchs. They represented highly distinct groups to Kangxi. The rank and file concerned him because, largely unknown to him as individuals, they could be the source of mischief in his palace. His elite eunuchs were of another stripe entirely: broadly educated and well known to him, he could trust them with some of the most important positions in his government. A H I ST ORY OF OU R DY NAST Y ’ S PA L AC E S : HA I L I N G KA N G X I A S A S T R IC T R E F O R M E R

To locate the rhetoric of Kangxi’s eunuch management we need go no further than A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, the Qianlong-era construction of a standardized narrative about early- and mid-Qing emperors’ tough stance on eunuchs. The edicts chosen for reprinting in that work collectively present a coherent picture of the Kangxi emperor’s attitudes about eunuchs as a group. The text also depicts Kangxi as a stern manager of eunuchs, whose punctilious attention ensured they would never again interfere in government. That Qianlong continued that tradition would be evident to readers of his palace history, who saw in the Qianlong emperor a ruler who maintained the standards of his grandfather. An edict of 1689 reprinted in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces shows the Kangxi emperor diligently keeping eunuchs in line. Looking around his palace, he noted that many eunuchs appeared poor and slovenly, with ragged clothes that made them look like beggars. How could this be? It was true that their salaries were low, but they had few expenses compared with soldiers, who had families to support and armor, weapons, and saddlery to buy. Eunuchs had simply their own mouths to feed and some clothes to buy, so their regular incomes should have been sufficient. Kangxi reasoned that gambling was to blame, and forbade eunuchs

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from taking part in it.3 Later in the same year he went further, adding brawling and the consumption of alcohol to the list of things explicitly forbidden for eunuchs. The ban on gambling and drinking was a harsh measure, as these were generally considered the few pleasures that were left to eunuchs.4 There was a subtle message in the decision to reprint this edict: the depiction of a palace filled with poor eunuchs made Kangxi appear a more vigilant emperor, one who had kept eunuchs from power and money.5 Qianlong’s palace history also cites Kangxi’s prohibitions on what he considered eunuchs’ unhealthy alliances. He complained, for example, that they formed fictive families with palace women, in which the eunuchs were “uncles” and the palace ladies “nieces.” Kangxi used a novel version of the logic of inner and outer to criticize these relationships, drawing a line between the separate realms of eunuchs and women. Eunuchs, he said, work in the inner court, but women work in the palace: “Each has their inner and outer.” Therefore, these connections should be severed.6 Kangxi’s logic is certainly unconventional; eunuchs and palace women were traditionally both considered “inner.” A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces depicts Kangxi as fastidious in observing the hierarchy of the palace. Eunuchs were servants, and for that reason should know their place and not overstep it, even in small matters. On August 9, 1682, Kangxi hosted a banquet for his princes and senior officials at his hunting lodge south of the city. Even before the guests had taken their seats, four eunuchs serving them returned to their shed to sit down. Infuriated, Kangxi ordered the chief eunuchs to deliberate on a punishment and report back to him. When they suggested fifty lashes for each man, Kangxi raised it to eighty7—a harsh penalty for men who had done little more than take their seats outside of the view of the guests. The emperor’s rigor was meant to demonstrate his ability to guard against even the slightest encroachments into imperial prerogative. Qianlong’s palace history attributes Kangxi’s stern management of eunuchs to his astute understanding of Ming eunuchs and the chaos they had wrought. The book reprints an edict from relatively late in his reign, when he reflected on the subject. Eunuchs should never be given authority. If they do [assume authority] they should be killed. At the time I took the throne, not twenty years had passed since the fall of the Ming. In my court were eunuchs and officials who had served in the Wanli period. They told me of the events at the end of the Ming . . . [when] eunuchs had a monopoly on power and rulers did not hold court. High officials dreaded the eunuchs, which made a mess of matters. These people’s temperaments are different from those of ordinary people. They are suited only for carrying out orders around the palace. Only one person can hold power; it cannot be passed into the hands of others.8

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In this and other passages in the text, Kangxi is shown to be acutely aware of eunuchs’ foibles. Emperors, he said, needed to be well aware of these faults, or they might fall into the trap of using eunuchs as government officials. In a pronouncement on the subject, he took, as his starting point, the eunuch Qian Wencai, who had murdered the commoner Xu Er: Whenever a eunuch kills someone, he may never be forgiven, and in fact should be punished more harshly. I have observed that from ancient times few eunuchs are good. It is necessary for rulers to guard against their subtle encroachments, and be cautious from the beginning. If one is tolerant and indulgent of them, their power will expand, and it will be too late to control them. In the Han dynasty, the ten eunuch directors and in the Tang dynasty the eunuch northern officers usurped power and authority, until the ruler’s every move, even what he wore and ate, was under their control. This was not something that happened overnight; it occurred gradually.

Kangxi then referred specifically to the issue of character: Eunuchs are basically yin in nature, and their character is not like that of ordinary people. Even . . . in old age, their voices sound like those of infants. On the outside they may seem prudent and sincere, but on the inside they are unpredictable. Rulers must be on their guard, to ensure that these sorts do not usurp authority.

He concluded with another reference to Ming history, and the danger of allowing eunuchs a role in official correspondence: I have heard that during the Ming dynasty, all rulers entrusted their written responses to memorials to the Office of Ceremonial, which delegated them to eunuchs in their employ. This lot of people has no learning, and knows nothing of proper argumentation. If their approval were required, how could mistakes and absurdities be avoided? In the case of Qian Wencai [who had been sentenced pending review at the autumn assizes], take careful note of this case, so that at the time of the assizes he will not be able to escape punishment.9

Kangxi’s generalizations about eunuchs, as reflected by the selected edicts in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, echo the seventeenth-century consensus on eunuchs and their management described in chapter 1. Here we see a standard narrative about the errors of the Ming, the yin character of eunuchs, and the dangers of eunuch participation in government. Later in this chapter we turn to the very different reality of Kangxi’s management of his eunuchs. Before doing so, however, we pause to examine the crafting of a powerful consensus on the nature of Ming eunuchs, as presented in the Qing-authored Ming History (Ming shi). Kangxi took an active role in crafting that consensus, and so the discussion of the editing of the Ming History takes place in this chapter, rather than in chapter 1. As

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will become evident, the Ming history was closely aligned with the scholarly developments described in chapter 1—not least because the scholar responsible for writing the draft of the Ming history was a student of one of the thinkers we met in there. T H E M I N G H I ST ORY: A C O N SE N SU S O N T H E T H R E AT A N D NAT U R E O F M I N G E U N U C H S

Reaching a consensus on the faults of the Ming was a prerequisite to legitimating Qing rule. Only when Kangxi had succeeded in persuading Han elites of the moral bankruptcy of the Ming would he win widespread approval for what the Manchus had done by supplanting them. Moreover, in ceding power to eunuchs, Ming rulers demonstrated they had lost the right to rule. In the Kangxi emperor’s drive to differentiate his dynasty from the Ming, no project was more important than the Ming History. The massive, government-sponsored official account of the fallen dynasty was mostly completed during the Kangxi reign, but was formally promulgated only in the fourth year of the Qianlong reign (1739). The Ming History became the official verdict on the errors the Ming had made in empowering eunuchs. Wan Sitong, a student of Huang Zongxi (discussed in chapter 1), was the person most responsible for the content of the Ming History. As we shall see, however, Kangxi actively shaped the depiction of Ming eunuchs in the text.10 Wan was just a boy of seven sui when Beijing fell to the Manchus, and his family endured a period of chaos and hardship. Like his teacher Huang Zongxi, Wan Sitong was deeply invested in the study of the past. It was not until his early thirties, however, when he lived with a fellow Zhejiang native whose home was renowned for its library, that he began his systematic study of Ming history. The family library contained a treasury of Ming sources, including the Veritable Records (Shilu) of fifteen Ming reigns. These documents were compiled during the Ming itself, at the conclusion of each reign, and provided a detailed record of court activity. As the historian Tu Lien-che noted, “Wan seized this opportunity to digest their contents and to lay the foundation for his recognized mastery of the history of the defunct dynasty.”11 In the 1670s, the Kangxi emperor, in a brilliant move to entice learned Han officials to serve his government, announced a special examination to recognize and honor those of wide learning: the Boxue Hongci examination.12 Wan Sitong was nominated to participate, although, as Tu Lien-che notes, he “instantly declined,” preferring to remain loyal to the Ming dynasty that his father had served. In 1679, when work on the Ming History began in earnest, Wan was summoned to participate. Perhaps because of his loyalty to the Ming, perhaps because of his belief in the superiority of private versus public historiography, he preferred to work behind the scenes rather than take up formal office.13 Wan worked on the

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Ming History for thirteen years. The result was a draft history of the dynasty that bore the official editor’s name, but was largely the fruit of Wan’s labors.14 Wan’s personal views of the evils of Ming eunuchs emerge in a different, unusual source: a collection of poems that he composed about the Ming dynasty. The notorious Ming eunuch Wei Zhongxian appears in several of them. In “Nine Thousand Years” (“Jiu qian sui”), Wan addressed what he saw as the outlandish practice of officials addressing Wei Zhongxian by the epithet Nine Thousand Years. How fitting, Wan noted, that Wei would die after just sixty-one years.15 In another poem, entitled “Perversities of the Tigers and Their Cubs,” Wan carefully enumerated the ten most evil followers of Wei Zhongxian, dividing them into the worst offenders (such as the minister of the Board of War, Cui Chengxiu), whom he called the tigers, and those evildoers who played a lesser role, whom he called the tiger cubs.16 “Tigers and Their Cubs” framed the issue of Ming eunuchs around the theme of fathers and sons—a recurring motif in his poems that deal with eunuchs. Perhaps it was Wan Sitong’s preoccupation: he had lost his father at a young age, and his teacher Huang Zongxi had lost his father to eunuch malfeasance. Wan observed how Ming eunuchs perverted the father–son relationship. In a poem entitled “The Son of Wang Zhen” he describes the notorious Ming eunuch Wang Zhen’s adopted son, Wang You, whom he infers the eunuch used for his sexual pleasure—a notion that the people of the time found laughable. In his preface to the poem, Wan observes: “During the Zhengtong reign the eunuch Wang Zhen usurped power. The vice-minister Wang You became his follower. When Wang Zhen saw that he was young, beautiful, and charming, he said to him: ‘How can it be that the viceminister is beardless?’ Wang You answered him: ‘My master has no beard, so how should his son dare to have a beard?’ The people of the time laughed over this until their sides hurt.”17 In a subsequent poem, “Slaves of the Four Surnames,” he criticized the many officials who became adopted sons of Wei Zhongxian. While his teacher Huang Zongxi was very specific about who was to blame for the excesses of the Ming eunuchs—greedy emperors who had forgotten why they were on the throne, and who had too many eunuchs—Wan Sitong, at least in his poems, was much less so. There seems to have been enough blame to go around: ineffectual emperors, sycophantic officials, and the eunuchs themselves. This is clear, for example, in his poem on the disastrous incident at Tumu, which took place in 1449. In that incident, the eunuch Wang Zhen (with the complicity of corrupt officials) misled a naive emperor into personally leading an army to attack the Oirat Mongol ruler, Esen. The poem describes how the army was badly defeated, and the emperor captured, in what became famous as the worst moment in Ming military history.18 In his draft history of the Ming, Wan Sitong became the conduit by which many of the ideas discussed in chapter 1 became the Qing government’s orthodox statement on Ming eunuch power. He established the arc of the Ming dynasty

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(introduced in chapter 1), with Hongwu, the founding emperor, surveying the crimes of eunuchs in previous dynasties and setting up the famous plaque warning eunuchs to stay clear of politics. Revealing the impact of Wang Fuzhi’s emphasis on the separation of inner and outer (also discussed in chapter 1), Hongwu ordered that although he would be setting up eunuch bureaus to manage eunuchs, he would specify that within those bureaus eunuchs should not simultaneously serve civil and military officials, should not encroach on outer-court matters, and should not wear official garb. He also ordered that they have nothing to do with the management of troops. “Alas,” he wrote, Hongwu’s “sons and grandsons abandoned these rules, bringing about disaster and defeat.” Subsequent emperors allowed eunuchs to have military command or meddle in government, and even permitted them to set up the notorious Eastern Depot, which became a place where officials were tortured by the eunuchs.19 Kangxi’s active role in the depiction of Ming eunuchs appears most forcefully in a 1692 edict he wrote to the editors of the Ming History in which he insisted that the blame for eunuch transgressions fell to the emperors who failed to maintain vigilance. In that year, Wan Sitong was in the capital, editing the draft Ming History. Apparently, Kangxi was not satisfied with the draft he had received because it placed too much blame on eunuchs, and not enough on the emperors who empowered them and on the officials with whom they collaborated.20 “As to the problem of [eunuch] officials causing harm to a dynasty,” he wrote, “examples of it can be found in history. . . . But I cannot agree with the conclusion that the Ming fell [only] because of eunuchs.”21 Several years later, in 1697, Kangxi again reviewed the draft Ming History, and he took up a similar issue. The Ming rulers, he said, had not fallen into some of the same traps as those of other dynasties: they did not have women or officials who usurped imperial power. Although he knew that the Ming had empowered eunuchs, Kangxi would be careful not to ridicule his predecessors. For the Mongol dynasty had ridiculed the Song, and the Ming had in turn ridiculed the Mongols, and both dynasties met their end. He would leave such judgments to “the verdict of the masses.”22 Though he might not have blamed eunuchs for the fall of the Ming, he did despise Wei Zhongxian. Four years later he would order the destruction of his grave, with its two steles, which lay just behind the Jade Cloud Temple (Biyun si) in the Fragrant Hills, outside Beijing.23 In its final, 1739 version, the Ming History followed the lead of Kangxi. It blamed eunuchs, yet reserved its greatest criticism for those who empowered them. It also reflected Kangxi’s views of the arc of Ming history, which saw the dynasty beginning well with Hongwu’s strict regulation. Kangxi admired the staunch first Ming emperor and his strict rules. That admiration was not untempered, however: on more than one occasion Kangxi criticized Hongwu for his harshness.24 Yet he admired him enough to make five separate visits to his tomb.25 He even composed

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a prayer for recitation at his grave: “Great emperor bestowed by heaven with bravery and wisdom, you rose vigorously from among the common people to unite all under heaven. Meticulous in what you did, a great planner and a great accomplisher, no one of a previous age can compare with you.”26 Moreover, as Kangxi noted, he had copied heavily from Hongwu’s rule in formulating his own dynastic regulations.27 Kangxi also disagreed with the draft’s excessive criticism of Hongwu, and ordered that it be corrected.28 The final, 1739 version praised the Hongwu emperor: “He could use the military [wu] to overcome chaos, and civil government [wen] to foster peace; he really embodied both virtues.” If anything, Hongwu was presented in an even more positive light in the decades that separated the completion of the draft Ming History from the final version. In the final version, Hongwu, in a move of which Huang Zongxi would have approved, was credited with limiting the number of his eunuchs to what seems like an impossibly low number: one hundred. He was also credited with restricting eunuchs to the fourth rank, and with keeping their wages low. These two additions to Wan Sitong’s text provide a kind of retrospective justification for eunuch policies that began after the Kangxi era: that is, restricting them to low wages.29 The Ming History concluded—just as had Gu Yanwu, one of the eminent scholars described in chapter 1—that the errors in Ming rule began in the Yongle reign (1402–1424). The root cause was that the Yongle emperor was a usurper. Unable to succeed without the help of eunuchs, he ended up giving them more and more power. As the Ming History noted: “The Ming practices allowing eunuchs to step out of their roles, in which they served as ambassadors, on punitive expeditions, in charge of the army, as guards, and even as assassins, all began with Yongle.”30 Things got even worse in the Xuanzong reign (1425–1435), when that emperor established a school for eunuchs. Grand secretaries were dispatched there to teach the eunuchs, and as a result eunuchs became highly educated. “They became more cultured, and aware of things old and new,” the Ming History noted, “which made it so they could flaunt their knowledge, and go from wickedness to wickedness.”31 According to the Ming History, these problems came home to roost in the 1520s: “Beginning with the Jiajing reign [1521–1567], discipline and morality deteriorated daily until, by the end of the Wanli reign [1572–1620], the corruption had reached its utmost.”32 Kangxi, too, would focus on the weakness of this period: “In the Wanli period and after, the government became increasingly weak. The eunuchs and factions brought false charges against one another. Partisans fought bitterly and morals decayed. Taxes went up and the government lost the hearts of the people.”33 As scholar Liu Zhigang has noted, Kangxi despised the late Ming emperors for their indolence, wastefulness, and incompetence.34 While he enthusiastically permitted Hongwu the posthumous honor of having his tablet placed in the Temple to Emperors of Successive Dynasties (Lidai diwang miao), he refused that privilege

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to three of the last four Ming emperors.35 Kangxi had a degree of sympathy, albeit limited, for the fourth, Chongzhen (1627–1644). This was the emperor who hanged himself from a tree on Jing Shan, bringing the Ming dynasty to an end. Kangxi viewed Chongzhen as a naive man who knew little of how the world worked, in part because he inherited a system of government in which emperors were confined to the inner precincts of the palace while eunuchs transacted their business. When problems arose, Chongzhen’s instinct was to turn to eunuchs. On one occasion he learned that an innocent man was likely to be executed. He sent his eunuch Yuan Ben with an urgent order to temporarily halt the execution. But eunuchs were prohibited from riding horseback in the palace, and Yuan Ben walked slowly. By the time he arrived at the execution grounds, the man was already dead. Chongzhen should have known better than to dispatch a eunuch, and it was his own naïveté that was at fault. Still, he had Yuan Ben beaten till the flesh on his backside was shredded.36 Kangxi notes that the slothfulness of Ming emperors meant that by the end of the dynasty they were essentially illiterate. They listened to their lectures from behind a curtain, and never mastered the written language, so they had no choice but to let eunuchs handle their affairs. Thus it was that in the end, power over life and death was given over to these men.37 Regulating the Rank and File A self-confident ruler, Kangxi considered himself a good judge of character. Yet he worried about the mass of eunuchs working in his palace who were unknown to him. These men could stir up trouble, and huge problems could emerge behind his back. Occasional cases—such as the eunuch Qian Wencai’s murder of the commoner Xu Er, discussed at the beginning of this chapter—justified his worries. Another among several cases that attracted Kangxi’s attention concerned a eunuch with the common name of Li Jinzhong. This eunuch was party to an extortion and blackmail ring, and even got involved in the forcible sale of a family member. The Board of Punishments investigated the case, and found that although the eunuch was guilty only of recklessly interfering in the household management of others, he should still be required to wear the cangue (the punishment of a wooden collar) for three months, and also suffer one hundred blows. Kangxi rejected the Board of Punishments’ recommendations, ordering Li Jinzhong and any other eunuchs involved be put to death. Kangxi thereby made clear that he would not be tolerant of eunuch wrongdoing. Reprising a position he had taken before, he said, “Power can be held by only one person; why would I want to give power to these sorts of people?” He also repeated his point that eunuchs’ characters were different from those of other men and of women—something he was well aware of, having used eunuchs for so many decades of his reign.38

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The Creation of the Imperial Household Department (Neiwu Fu) and the Office of Eunuch Affairs (Jingshi Fang) As noted above, following Shunzhi’s death, Oboi and his fellow regents to the Kangxi emperor took steps to toughen the dynasty’s stance on eunuchs. They forged, in Shunzhi’s name, the will showing Shunzhi to be contrite for his mistakes, including the establishment of the Thirteen Yamen and the conferring of official power on eunuchs. They also issued an edict in Kangxi’s name abolishing the Thirteen Yamen. With the Thirteen Yamen abolished, the Qing needed a new way to manage the household affairs of the emperor, so they created the Imperial Household Department (Neiwu Fu). The managers, at the highest level of this umbrella organization, generally were clansmen of the emperor; the rank-and-file members were eunuchs and bondservants, with the latter drawn from the upper three banners (which were under the direct control of the emperor). The genius of the system was that within the organization eunuchs were subordinate to bondservants. This was intended to solve once and for all the problem of eunuch power. Once the Kangxi emperor began ruling in his own right, he created a suborganization of the Imperial Household Department called the Jingshi Fang—literally, “Respect Affairs Room,” though the term is most sensibly translated more loosely as the Office of Eunuch Affairs.39 In this case the Qing were coining a new term with a distinct, twofold purpose: first, to emphasize the notion of respect in all affairs (that is, that eunuchs would know their place); and second, to depart once and for all from the Ming-era eunuch-agency names, with their bad connotations.40 One finds frequent mention of the various functions of the Jingshi Fang in the secondary literature. Since few of the agency’s archives survive, however, it is difficult to know much about its structure and how it changed over time. When Kangxi established it in 1677, its roles were straightforward. It was to be headed by one chief eunuch and one assistant chief eunuch, both of whom were unranked. Its duties, according to Kangxi, were to “manage all affairs in the palace, receive and implement edicts [pertaining to the palace], and receive and transmit palace communications.”41 At various times, the chief eunuch of the Jingshi Fang was the most important eunuch in the palace. When Kangxi established the office, it was located in a side building to the west of the Qianqing Gong. Kangxi presented the new office with a wooden board, inscribed with his own calligraphy, that read, “Jingshi Fang”; the board would hang over the entrance. In the Jiaqing period (1796–1820) the office was isolated to the northeast corner of the palace, in an area later called the Bei Wu Suo.42 According to a work compiled around 1713, the Jingshi Fang was located just to the east of the Qianqing Gong, inside the Jingren Gong. This palace was the living quarters for female members of the imperial household, suggesting that there was a spillover branch of the Jingshi Fang located here that dealt with service to imperial womenfolk.43

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The Jingshi Fang’s responsibilities included oversight of palace maintenance and security, and supervision of the daily needs of palace residents. It organized the guard duty for eunuchs who patrolled the palace grounds, for example. It also served as a catchall, responding to the emperor’s specific instructions and answering to him alone on palace matters, without the intervention of bureaucratic mechanisms. In May 1697, for example, Kangxi wrote to his chief eunuch with commentary and instructions on someone he called only by his nickname, Little Monkey Liu, who had accompanied him as a personal attendant on his mission to exterminate Galdan. Kangxi took a dislike to the eunuch: “I have sent Little Monkey Liu to convey my greetings to the empress dowager. There’s nothing else [for him to do]. He is strange and his gall is great. How can he be my personal attendant? He’s really loathsome. Don’t have him sent back here. Lock him up in the Jingshi Fang; keep him there and don’t let him go home.”44 With no fanfare and with nothing more than an instruction to his chief eunuch, Kangxi was able to bypass formality and imprison someone indefinitely. The Jingshi Fang also oversaw palace rituals and ensured that food for those rituals was properly prepared. It also supervised the circulation of imperial household documents, involving not only eunuchs of various levels, but also the clerks known by the Manchu name of bithesi.45 The Jingshi Fang was also, at various times, in charge of the recruitment, evaluation, transfers, and punishment of eunuchs, although the organization chiefly responsible for disciplining eunuchs was another agency within the Imperial Household Department, the Shenxing Si, or Office of Palace Justice (described in a subsequent section).46 Other responsibilities attributed to the Jingshi Fang included the recording of the births of imperial children and the recording of other information that went into imperial genealogies. Even financial matters were not outside the purview of this agency: eunuchs of the Jingshi Fang were responsible for receipt of funds from the outer vaults.47 As stated above, the strict containment of eunuch power rested upon the new subordination of the eunuchs to the bondservants. This fact was first formally described by a Fujianese named Wang Qingyun, an official who received the jinshi in 1829 and went on to important posts in the central government, where he had access to confidential internal documents.48 Wang’s study of the central government provides valuable insights into the history of the Qing, and his views about Kangxi’s plan to limit eunuch power by making the eunuch organizations subordinate to the bondservants have been oft-repeated.49 The power dynamics between eunuchs and members of the banner organization—that is, who was subordinate to whom—was much more complex than Kangxi’s formal change placing eunuchs under the control of bondservants suggests. There are ample cases later in this book, under the reigns of subsequent emperors, in which eunuchs exercised power over other members of the palace,

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whether bannermen or bondservants. Kangxi’s change that made eunuchs subordinate to bondservants was of limited effect. Instead, it was two other Kangxi-era innovations that had the most impact. These are detailed in the next two sections. A New System of Punishments As noted above, while the Jingshi Fang did some disciplining of eunuchs— presumably administrative penalties for small infractions—the Office of Palace Justice, or Shenxing Si, handled more serious matters. Under Kangxi, who established this office, the Shenxing Si began the practice of lashing eunuchs with bamboo sticks. As with the cases handled by the Board of Punishments, eunuchs who erred were sentenced to a specified number of blows. The Shenxing Si, at least in the time of Kangxi, could also mete out the death penalty. One source notes that eunuchs who received it would be beaten to death with a bamboo pole filled with lead.50 Frequently, the Board of Punishments, with its superior investigative apparatus, cooperated in the handling of serious cases or took them over completely. Chapter 8 will furnish a fuller description of the workings of the Shenxing Si in the reign of Kangxi’s grandson Qianlong. Kangxi also set up the system for imprisoning eunuchs who committed minor offenses—used most frequently in the case of eunuchs who ran away. In 1691, he ordered that miscreant eunuchs be imprisoned in the “newly established stables on Weng Shan, where they are to cut hay.”51 This was a hill in the Western Hills, outside of Beijing, that by the end of the Qing would be incorporated into the grounds of the Yihe Yuan, or New Summer Palace (constructed by the Empress Dowager Cixi). Eunuchs sent to Weng Shan were usually confined for periods of one to three years, and while there were obliged to cut the hay for the imperial stables. Kangxi carefully regulated these prisoners’ lives, including how much food and clothing they would receive. To Kangxi, these eunuchs epitomized the danger posed to his reign by rank-and-file eunuchs who were not carefully supervised, and he demanded that eunuchs sent to Weng Shan be closely watched.52 Weng Shan remained, in Kangxi’s reign and beyond, an important place for the confinement of offending eunuchs. Though most were confined there for relatively short periods, some were sent there for life sentences. In the most extreme cases, eunuchs might be imprisoned in shackles for life at Weng Shan.53 A Responsibility System Out of concern that he could not know or trust each individual eunuch in his service, Kangxi established a system whereby responsibility for regulating the behavior of rank-and-file eunuchs was in the hands of their supervisory eunuchs (shouling taijian). The supervisory eunuchs, in turn, would be governed by the

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chief eunuchs (zongguan taijian), who would be held responsible for their behavior. The clearest enunciation of this policy appeared in a 1701 edict to his chief eunuchs, and was enshrined in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces. Kangxi’s topic was the problem of eunuch cliques, which he attributed to weakness in the eunuch chain of command: “The [problem of factions] is caused by chief eunuchs who cannot control their supervisory eunuchs, and supervisory eunuchs who cannot control the rank-and-file eunuchs. They are all lawless, and this brings about this reckless behavior. It even happens that [ordinary eunuchs] pilfer like bandits. You should quickly report these occurrences, and must not cover them up. If in the future they should come to light, who among you could protect the supervisory eunuchs?”54 Two cases from 1706 neatly illustrate the role that Kangxi saw for the eunuch chain of command in maintaining the order of the palace. In one case, trouble began when a bannerman by the name of Fuxing sold his three daughters to a fellow bannerman. Miserable in their new household, the girls committed suicide, and in response Fuxing and others beat a family member from the other house by the name of Su Yifeng. After deliberation, Fuxing and other guilty parties were sentenced to eighty blows. The eunuch Zhang Yu, an in-law of Fuxing’s wife, had accompanied Fuxing to the household where the crime occurred. Although the investigation found that Zhang was not involved in the beating, the emperor took exception to the decision to leave the eunuch unpunished. He wrote: The beating to death of Su Yifeng may have had nothing to do with [the eunuch] Zhang Yu. But as a matter of course I do not allow eunuchs to cause trouble, and use the rules to govern them strictly. Even though Zhang Yu was not involved in this matter, how is it that he was able to go to the Qiya family household [where the beating took place]? It is certainly a matter of his supervisory eunuch not watching over him strictly, and granting him leave to go there. Let Zhang Yu and his supervisory eunuch both be strictly investigated.55

The Board of Punishments deliberated on the matter, and found that both the eunuch Zhang Yu and his supervisory eunuch should be punished. Zhang was ordered to wear the cangue for three months and to receive one hundred blows. A fine was also recommended for his supervisory eunuch, Niu Guanxu. The emperor was still not satisfied, and was troubled in particular by the fact that the Jingshi Fang had not questioned the accused in detail. He wrote, “In this case the chief eunuchs and bondservants have still not taken the confessions [of Zhang Yu and his supervisor]. Let them take the confessions and memorialize.”56 Kangxi wanted not only a detailed assessment of what had transpired in the conflict, but also a sense, from the confessions, of what was going on in the palace. The case illustrates the emperor’s view of how ordinary eunuchs were to be governed in his palace. If eunuchs left the palace, it was the supervisory eunuchs

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who were responsible for giving them permission, and for reporting their absences. Bondservants and chief eunuchs were there to watch over the system and investigate wrongdoings. Moreover, they were obliged to take confessions when things went awry. The confessions, which are an important source for this book, provide us with a much better understanding of how the system functioned than the simple statement that Kangxi made eunuchs subordinate to the bondservants. Rather, it was a system in which eunuchs managed their own. That supervisory eunuchs had immense discretion over their subordinates was a persistent weak link in the system, one that would be fully exploited in subsequent reigns. Another case, which had occurred just two months earlier, was similarly revealing. In this case the criminal was a eunuch named Dou Ming. We know of Dou’s crimes only from a six-character mention of it in the imperial diaries: he used poison to drug and kidnap someone, and he injured that person’s face. Dou Ming was sentenced to death. In discussing the case, the emperor said: If eunuchs have business on the outside, they should notify their supervisory eunuchs and then depart. And they should return promptly. If they are not absolutely prompt, they should be dealt with harshly. If Dou Ming had not run away, how was it that he was outside? Dou Ming’s case should certainly be classified as a running away. From the questions asked in the confession that was submitted to the Board [of Punishments], no questions were asked about the circumstances of his running away. Let these be posed by officials in the Board.57

It fell to Maci, an eminent Kangxi-period official, to answer this tough question.58 He memorialized the throne, reporting that he and other officials had sought an answer from responsible officials in the Board of Punishments. They had not considered Dou Ming a runaway, they claimed, because on the day that he injured his victim’s face he had been away for just under twenty days. The emperor responded: “If Dou Ming had been outside the palace for twenty days, how can he not be considered a runaway?” He asked for specific clarification on this matter. As in the case of Zhang Yu above, Dou Ming’s supervisory eunuch was held responsible for the fact that his subordinate had left without permission. Both cases demonstrate Kangxi’s insistence on supervisory eunuchs strictly controlling the comings and goings of their subordinates. Yet he understood, as a practical matter, that the palace could not be hermetically sealed from the outside, and in many cases he even encouraged connections to the world beyond the palace. A decade before these cases, for example, he arranged for eunuchs who were training to cut hair and learn massage to study outside of the palace during the day and return by night.59 The case of Dou Ming, however, made plain that there was a world of eunuch activity to which he was not privy, and that eunuchs were leaving the palace for days and even weeks without permission or supervision, or indeed, timetables for their return.

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We lose the trail of Dou Ming’s case, and have no record of whether Kangxi was satisfied with the answers he received from what appear to be his final inquiries. That Zhang Yu’s case could come so soon after Dou Ming’s, however, suggests that the emperor’s attempt to crack down on palace mis-management of rank-and-file eunuchs was not as effective as he believed. The case of Dou Ming points to an important contradiction in Kangxi’s management of his eunuchs. He asserted in the strongest possible terms that the Ming had fallen into the clutches of eunuch power because emperors had grown negligent, failing to keep a close watch over their eunuchs. For him, and for other Qing emperors, the duty to carefully supervise eunuchs was a duty personally incumbent on the emperor. The rhetoric of the relationship, as the quotations in the first part of this chapter suggest, was completely focused on a responsibility that could not be delegated. Yet as a practical matter, there were too many eunuchs in the palace for the emperor to personally oversee. So it was that Kangxi, and subsequent Qing emperors, delegated and institutionalized that responsibility, never fully able to admit that they were doing so. What was a personal onus, then, was translated into bureaucratic structures. That contradiction posed challenges for Qing emperors, but it also created possibilities for ordinary Qing eunuchs whose lives were regulated by these structures. Before turning to those issues, however, we shift our gaze from these rank-and-file eunuchs to the elite group of eunuchs who surrounded Kangxi. The existence of these elite eunuchs provides a new perspective on Kangxi’s rulership.

4

The Influence of Eunuchs in Kangxi’s Inner Circle

While Kangxi’s proximity in time to the Ming made him wary of eunuchs, it also made him more likely to draw upon Ming models of management—perhaps more than he realized or cared to admit. The Manchu rulers were new to China, and were still becoming accustomed to life in a palace they inherited from their Ming predecessors. As Kangxi designed his palace operations, he turned, ironically and yet understandably, to Ming customs. In the process, he came to use eunuchs in ways that followed Ming patterns, granting some of them great power and authority. Kangxi’s use of eunuchs also fit with his ruling style, as this chapter brings to light. He used talent wherever he could find it, and made a point of recruiting officials without regard to their backgrounds. On the same principle, talented eunuchs could be part of his government. While keeping to a rhetoric in which eunuchs were, generally speaking, not to be trusted, he quietly made them some of his top advisers. Many of the eunuchs to whom he turned were highly educated, with specialized knowledge that fit his interests and needs. E D U C AT E D E U N U C H S I N T H E M I N G T R A D I T IO N

When Kangxi chose to employ educated eunuchs, he was continuing a Ming tradition. Many of the eunuchs who served Ming emperors were highly educated. During the final years of the Yongle period (1402–1424), the government even made it possible for educational officials to become eunuchs, so long as they were childless.1 The stated goal of this policy was to provide able, cultured men to be teachers of palace women. Only a few men chose to become castrated and enter palace 83

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service under this rule.2 Many Ming eunuchs, however, were the products of a sophisticated education system that was well known in that dynasty. Eunuch education in the Ming was primarily Confucian in orientation. Many eunuchs who received Confucian educations came to see themselves as responsible for maintaining virtue in the palace world. There were, indeed, Ming writers who argued that a Confucian education would have a beneficial effect on eunuchs. One such writer was the neo-Confucian scholar Jiao Hong (1540–1620), who believed Confucian-educated eunuchs were desirable because they would be good influences on the emperor.3 Ming sources describe eunuchs who were paragons of Confucian virtue. There was He Ding, who lived during the Hongzhi reign (1487–1505). He delivered a sound thrashing to the empress’s brother-in-law when he acted with grave lack of decorum (playfully donning the emperor’s crown, when the sovereign left the throne room). Those who arrested and interrogated the eunuch assumed he was in league with others in the palace. When asked whether there were such people, he responded: “Yes, Confucius and Mencius.”4 Another such Confucian eunuch was Tan Ji, who lived during the Tianshun reign (1457–1464) of the Ming dynasty.5 Tan had been in the palace since he was nine sui, and had spent his career educating young eunuchs in Confucian texts. He would admonish the empress whenever he caught her reading Buddhist sutras, considered heterodox in the Confucian tradition.6 The most famous of Confucianized eunuchs was Liu Ruoyu, who was born during the Wanli reign (1572–1620). Liu is well known to history not only because he was highly educated for a eunuch, but also because the memoir he left behind became an invaluable source of information on Ming palace life and procedures. The son of a high-ranking military officer, Liu, it was said, at age fourteen sui “rebelled against the teachings of his father and elder brother” and chose to pursue his love of Confucian scholarship rather than enter military service. Following a dream in which “he felt himself to be different,” he underwent castration and entered palace service, where his literary skills were highly valued. In the palace, Liu continued to study Confucian texts on his own, after his day’s work as a copyist. The eunuch, who took the literary name “Disabled Scholar,” wholeheartedly pursued his interest in Confucian education for the rest of his career, retiring only late in life, after factionalism at court became unbearable.7 Liu Ruoyu’s book provides a window onto the life of young Ming eunuchs who received a Confucian education under a system that continued under Kangxi’s rule. For each graduating class, the palace chose groups of two to three hundred newly castrated boys of approximately eleven years of age to become students at the palace school. Their studies began with the selection of an auspicious day, when they made obeisance to Confucius. Each student would prepare white wax, a handkerchief, and incense as gifts for their teacher. On that first day, each student was given The Book of Family Names, The Thousand-Character Classic, The Classic

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of Filial Piety, The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Mencius, and two collections of Tang and Song dynasty poetry, along with calligraphy supplies. The students were managed severely. For minor offenses, they would be rapped on the hands with batons, but for larger transgressions they were forced to kneel for long periods before the statue of Confucius. In the case of grave transgressions, they were made to bow before Confucius and touch their toes while keeping their legs and back straight. They had to hold this position for the time it took to burn through two or more sticks of incense. These details demonstrate not only how harsh the education of young eunuchs could be, but also how steeped in Confucian values. When He Ding told his interrogators that his accomplices were Confucius and Mencius, he was speaking the truth, as a proud product of this strict Confucian education system.8 The system continued to flourish in the Kangxi period. Kangxi himself, while never openly promoting it, respected and expanded the system. He quietly set up a school for eunuchs in the Wanshan Dian (Temple of Myriad Blessings, a Mingera palace building that Shunzhi had used for his Zen devotions), located just west of the inner palace. This school, in which highly educated officials taught eunuchs both Manchu and Chinese,9 trained new generations of elite, educated eunuchs who could become trusted imperial advisers. While Kangxi was building this system, the scholars we met in chapter 1 were developing their own, very different ideas about eunuch education. To them, and to Gu Yanwu in particular, educated eunuchs were dangerous. These scholars were quick to point out that while some educated eunuchs benefited from their Confucian educations and became virtuous, many more used their educations for evil, wielding the brush on the emperor’s behalf and eventually usurping power. This view became the predominant one in the eighteenth century, when concern that highly educated eunuchs were a cause of the Ming dynasty’s collapse would lead the Qing to turn from their embrace of a full and Confucian education for eunuchs and replace it with a much more rudimentary one. But Kangxi adhered to Ming ideas. KA N G X I’ S RU L I N G ST Y L E : A R E SP E C T F O R TA L E N T

While Kangxi’s willingness to permit eunuch education and employ talented eunuchs was certainly a product of his proximity in time to the Ming, it also reflected his values as a ruler. Many scholars have written about his genius for personnel selection. Some have gone so far as to suggest that his skill in choosing his officials was the key to his successful sixty-year reign of peace and prosperity.10 While writers point to a range of reasons why Kangxi excelled at personnel selection, three of his skills best explain his willingness to make use of eunuch advisers, so soon after the fall of the Ming. First, while he professed disdain for eunuchs as a group, and worried about the possible transgressions of the mass of eunuchs in

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his palace whom he did not know personally, when it came to choosing his officials he did not discriminate among categories of people: all could work for him. Second, Kangxi stressed personal loyalty. He welcomed a range of men into his service, regardless of background, so long as they proved their loyalty. Finally, he stressed education, and specifically self-education. He employed not only men who were products of the traditional education system, but also those who had demonstrated a willingness to learn on their own. Each of these principles applied especially well to Kangxi’s top eunuchs. As the leader of a conquering people, Kangxi might well have taken only the side of his fellow Manchus, but as he himself would say, he strove “to be impartial between Manchus and Chinese.”11 It was not that he failed to see differences between both peoples—quite the contrary: in his eyes, each possessed specific strengths and weaknesses. Above all, he trusted his ability to judge character, and to use the people at his disposal while being wary of their deficiencies. Even the sons or nephews of former personal enemies could be trusted, if their character and motivations were understood.12 Eunuchs were really no different. Kangxi knew their weaknesses, but believed he was careful and perceptive enough to make use of their strengths. Ming emperors had failed because they lost sight of the flaws in eunuchs’ personalities, not because they employed them in the first place. Eunuchs could offer a particular brand of loyalty to Kangxi, a virtue he especially prized. Manchu rule was still fragile, and the young emperor had trouble wooing Han officials to enter government service. As we noted earlier, many talented Han Chinese had fathers who had served the Ming and, like Wan Sitong, were therefore reluctant to serve him. Kangxi had sought to win them over by sponsoring the famous Boxue Hongci examination (discussed in the previous chapter), designed to draw learned officials into government service. Yet Kangxi had just as much to worry about from the Han Chinese who had readily joined up with him. If they were so willing to betray the dynasty they or their fathers had served, could they not just as easily turn against him? Manchus, too, could be suspect. Indeed, the Kangxi reign was filled with examples of cliques and factionalism, even among members of what might be considered the emperor’s trusted inner circle.13 In this dangerous climate, he valued loyalty most of all. Eunuchs were in a different situation. In the classic formulation for official loyalty, the emperor encouraged his officials to observe filial piety, which became the basis of the loyalty they owed to him. This was a problematic paradigm for Kangxi, because the fathers of many of the would-be officials had been Ming officials. For these Han sons, choosing to serve the emperor could mean betraying their fathers.14 Eunuchs, however, were not the sons of Ming officials, so serving the Qing did not amount to betraying their fathers. Moreover, while some Kangxi-era eunuchs embraced the model of official loyalty that was based in filial piety, the majority of them understood their loyalty in

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different ways than officials. Once they entered palace service they were considered to have left home. They changed their names, were not officially entitled to observe mourning, and were expected to be directly and personally loyal to the emperor. Small wonder, then, that the eunuchs discussed in this chapter could become trusted members of Kangxi’s inner circle. One scholar, Liu Zhigang, has gone so far as to suggest that Kangxi valued eunuchs more than Han officials, because of their actions during the fall of the Ming, when eunuchs demonstrated true loyalty. Ming officials had clamored for war and shunned the idea of peace talks, but when Li Zicheng’s forces came to Beijing both civil and military officials fled, and not one sacrificed his life for the dynasty. In the end, the only one to follow Chongzhen in death had been his eunuch Wang Cheng’en. Furthermore, when Chongzhen’s body lay lifeless and abandoned, no official had lifted a finger to retrieve the body. Instead, they simply put on mourning clothes. It fell to a eunuch to encoffin the dead Chongzhen.15 Finally, as noted above, those who study Kangxi’s personnel policies describe the importance he placed on education, and especially self-education. He prized those who went beyond the traditional education system in pursuit of knowledge.16 His educated eunuchs were likely a small percentage of the total number of eunuchs in his service. Some were self-educated, and often in areas that lay outside the traditional Confucian curriculum. Thus they were able to acquire unique skills and knowledge that the emperor prized. Self-education also freed some of them from the doctrinaire pressures of Confucianism. While many of them were educated in Confucian texts, few showed traits of the extreme Confucianism of some Ming eunuchs. These were not men who had spent their lives intensively studying the classics in order to pass the civil exams; they had time to learn medicine, Western science, technology; two had even studied Western medicine.17 Freedom from the Confucian preoccupation meant greater freedom of thought—which the emperor could find useful among high-ranking eunuchs. When, for example, Kangxi learned of the existence of a Daoist adept who purported to be able to achieve mastery over the self, instead of sending regular officials to investigate, he sent a Han bannerman by the name of Fan Hongsi in the company of the eunuchs Li Xingtai and Feng Yaoren.18 Kangxi’s eunuchs also possessed a great deal of practical knowledge, making them the “go-to” people for many matters of daily life. When people at court had stomach trouble, for example, Kangxi might suggest Manchu steamed-ginseng plasters, but he also experimented with a prescription suggested by the eunuch He Shang for controlling diarrhea.19 Eunuchs’ skills made them good advisers, and generally useful to have around the palace. Educated eunuchs could make up for lacunae in Kangxi’s still evolving knowledge of Han culture and even his language skills. He was comfortable having them in this role because, when he was a boy, it was eunuchs who served as his first Chinese teachers.20 Even after officials took over responsibility for his education,

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eunuchs continued to help him draft documents. Eunuchs’ ability to counsel him anywhere in the palace, and at any time of the day or night, certainly made them convenient advisers. As educated men, eunuchs supplied important information about the Ming. Some of what Kangxi learned from eunuchs was based on their experiences in the Ming palace; in other cases, their information was drawn from stories passed down within the palace walls. Eunuchs who were eyewitnesses to events regaled the emperor with stories of the final days of the last Ming emperor, who tried to escape assassination by disguising himself as a commoner and fleeing in the company of eunuchs before finally committing suicide with his loyal eunuch Wang Cheng’en.21 Eunuchs also recounted stories from the heyday of Ming eunuch power. Kangxi had read about these events, but in his court there were eunuchs who could corroborate them. They confirmed, for example, that the Tianqi emperor (r. 1620– 1627) would refer to the notoriously evil eunuch Wei Zhongxian as “old partner [laobanr].” This zenith of eunuch power had occurred just thirty-five years before Kangxi ascended the throne, so it is not surprising that there were elderly eunuchs in his court who could personally attest to it.22 C H UA N Z H I : A N A M B IG U O U S A N D P OW E R F U L P H R A SE

The handful of elite Kangxi-era eunuchs were powerful and important advisers. Over time, some even came to infringe on key elements of the emperor’s authority. The power that went along with that level of influence became corrupting, and several of them ended up disgraced. The mechanism for the growth of their power involved two interlocking components. First, Kangxi’s system for managing his most senior eunuchs depended on his own robust control over them. He assumed he would always be a strong enough ruler to keep control of the power he had given them. With age and infirmity, though, his hold on power weakened, and the power of these eunuch advisers grew. Second, eunuchs were able to quietly usurp power through the mechanism of chuanzhi, their authority to transmit orders on the emperor’s behalf. When infamous Ming eunuchs such as Wei Zhongxian usurped imperial authority, they did so by exploiting the ambiguity allowed by the practice of chuanzhi. When a eunuch carried in a question from an official, and the emperor asked the eunuch to verbally convey a response, it was labeled “transmitting an order.” When a eunuch received a verbal order from the emperor, committed it to writing, and delivered it to officials, that was considered “transmitting an order” as well. The danger of this practice was recognized even before the Ming, at the court of the young Khubilai, by one of the khan’s advisers, Lian Xixian (1231–1280). A Uighur whose father had ensured that his son acquired a traditional Chinese edu-

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cation, Lian knew enough from his studies to warn against eunuchs transmitting orders. “Whenever a eunuch transmits an order saying things should be such-andsuch a way,” he said, “it is the start of their interference in politics [zizheng], and they should be beaten.”23 During the Ming itself, eunuchs transmitted orders as a way of building their power bases.24 When eunuch power reached its zenith late in the dynasty, the “transmitting of orders” was a thinly veiled guise for eunuchs issuing orders completely on their own authority. During the reign of the Tianqi emperor (1620–1627), Wei Zhongxian became the most powerful eunuch in Chinese history. Yet, powerful as he was, he never issued orders in his own name. Instead “chuanzhi” was still used to describe his orders. For example, when Wei Zhongxian and his faction wished to close an academy of learning they thought would be used to oppose them, Wei “transmitted an order” ordering the closure.25 Given the phrase’s fraught history, it is somewhat surprising that it continued to be used in the Shunzhi period, and more surprising still that its use continued under Kangxi. It is most astonishing that in the Kangxi period the emperor gradually acquiesced to the term (and its associated practices) being used as it was during the Ming—to allow eunuchs a degree of autonomy. Over the long decades of Kangxi’s reign, his eunuchs grew increasingly powerful. Although that power never endangered Qing rule, it swelled to alarming proportions. In subsequent sections we meet the members of Kangxi’s inner circle of eunuchs. Sadly, we know too little about their life histories. Eunuchs are hard enough to learn about—harder still when they end their lives in ignominy, as did several of these men. What we do learn, however, indicates a great deal about the nature of the trust Kangxi placed in his eunuchs and the extent to which their transmitting of orders empowered them.26 A E U N U C H O F T H E E A R LY A N D M I D D L E KA N G X I P E R IO D : G U W E N X I N G

Kangxi’s first notable eunuch was Gu Wenxing. By the sixteenth year of Kangxi’s reign (1677), he was the most important of three chief eunuchs, and was listed first on edicts to chief eunuchs, such as one that dictated procedures for withdrawals of silver and other valuables from the privy purse.27 Gu Wenxing had achieved high position as supervisor of the emperor’s womenfolk—that is, Kangxi’s empress, consorts (of whom he had seventy-nine), concubines, and attendants.28 Kangxi was especially punctilious when it came to the isolation of the female members of his household, and delegated that responsibility to Gu Wenxing.29 When Kangxi wanted to remind his eunuchs that his womenfolk should not be permitted to roam about when high officials were in the palace, it was to Gu Wenxing that he issued the order.30 Because of Gu’s connection to the female members of the

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imperial household, he played an important role in Kangxi’s mourning for his beloved grandmother after her death in 1688. At the time, Kangxi worried about his mother’s health, which seemed to decline after his grandmother’s death; grief and overwork from nursing his grandmother had left his mother emaciated and in need of medical treatment. He pressed four men to write to her, urging her to remain in her palace rather than take part in the arduous rituals planned for the following day. The four were Mingju, the most powerful member of Kangxi’s court at that time; Prince Bandi, a Mongol stalwart and a vice chief minister of the Imperial Household Department; Erge, an imperial bodyguard; and Gu Wenxing. It was Gu Wenxing, as chief eunuch, who brought in the request to her palace while the others waited outside.31 Seventeen of the Kangxi emperor’s letters to Gu Wenxing survive, and have been translated by Jonathan Spence. Written in 1697 when the emperor was in his midforties, they reveal a trusting and informal relationship between the two men. Because Gu was literate, he could serve as an important liaison between Kangxi and the womenfolk, passing along information on health and household matters. Kangxi’s letters often began with requests for particular articles of clothing to be finished and sent. But they also pointed to the emperor’s affection for the eunuch. Kangxi sent him small things he acquired on his travels. On one occasion Kangxi sent Gu some sun-dried muskmelon, with specific instructions on how it should be prepared. Finishing the letter with an effusion of emotion, he wrote, “This is a trifling matter, but my heart is truly far away with you—don’t laugh at me for this.”32 Gu Wenxing and Temple Patronage Gu Wenxing was thus a eunuch for Kangxi’s domestic life, and had little to do with politics. In this respect, he was different from the powerful Ming eunuchs who used their personal connections to emperors to pave their path into politics. Gu Wenxing resembled Ming eunuchs in only one particular way: his overt role in temple patronage. The construction and reconstruction of temples was a passion of powerful Ming eunuchs. During the eighteenth century, however, such overt forms of conspicuous consumption would come to be considered inappropriate for eunuchs, and temple patronage would take place collectively, with many eunuchs contributing money rather than a single elite eunuch bearing full cost.33 Kangxi’s elite eunuchs continued Ming practices, not only rebuilding temples but also having the story of their accomplishments recorded on large stone tablets on the temple grounds. These eunuchs also continued the Ming practice of having high officials compose and provide calligraphy for the tablets—a practice that would be frowned upon later in the dynasty. But Gu Wenxing was still firmly in the Ming tradition: in 1701, he completed the renovation and enlargement of a temple on the eastern side of the city dedicated to officials of previous dynasties who had lost their lives in battle or sacrificed themselves for the sake of loyalty.34 Two years

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later, in 1703, he and others established a temple and monastery in honor of the Buddhist deity Guanyin, in Miyun County.35 These were expensive undertakings, and point to how well Gu was compensated for his loyalty to the imperial household. This spate of temple construction manifested Gu Wenxing’s growing interest in Buddhism, which intensified around the time of the emperor’s 1699 southern tour. Gu accompanied the tour, during which Kangxi sent him to Mount Putuo, the important Buddhist holy mountain on an island near present-day Shanghai, to burn incense and pray for the emperor. Four years earlier, Kangxi had fallen seriously ill, and his high officials Wang Hongxu and Gao Shiqi commissioned a statue of Guanyin for the Xilei Courtyard at Mount Putuo. When Gu Wenxing went there to pray and burn incense for the emperor, he was inspired to suggest the consecration of yet another courtyard. Gu won not only the emperor’s enthusiastic support for the idea, but additional funds from Wang and Gao for the temple’s enlargement, including a tablet and altar honoring their ruler. The roof tiles were also changed to imperial yellow, signifying the temple’s imperial status.36 Gu must have taken pride in this accomplishment, and must have revered the site itself, because he was presented with an ancestral temple of three buildings there, not far from Kangxi’s yellow-roofed temple. A tablet in the eunuch’s honor was placed inside.37 Gu was thus rewarded for his many years of service. Unlike other Kangxiera eunuchs, he would not end his life in disgrace. In the first year of his reign, the Yongzheng emperor would posthumously award him the third rank.38 T WO E U N U C H S O F T H E M I D D L E A N D L AT E KA N G X I P E R IO D : L I Y U A N D L IA N G J I U G O N G

There is no record of Gu Wenxing ever “transmitting orders” (chuanzhi). The same cannot be said of Li Yu and Liang Jiugong, two important middle- and late-Kangxiera eunuchs. These men were frequently responsible for transmitting orders, which in their case could mean either the verbal passing of orders or the drafting of orders on the emperor’s behalf. The clearest view of the everyday role of these two eunuchs at Kangxi’s court appears in the diary of Song Luo (1634–1713), then governor of Jiangsu (as well as a talented poet, calligrapher, and horseman). The governor, who was highly regarded by the emperor as an able and skillful administrator,39 recorded his interactions with the emperor in three locations: in Jiangsu Province (while the emperor was on tour); in the Forbidden City; and at the Changchun Yuan, the imperial villa in the northwest of Beijing. During these encounters, the eunuchs Liang Jiugong and Li Yu were constantly at the emperor’s side, ever ready to carry out his requests. In the diary, Kangxi often calls on eunuchs Liang and Li to retrieve and present gifts. On one occasion, when the emperor learned from Song Luo that he was

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taking ginseng for his health, Kangxi glanced at Li Yu, who was at his side, and said: “Take out a measure of good ginseng and bestow it on him.”40 On his tour to the south in 1699, when Kangxi wished to honor Song with a gift—one of two specially crafted rare Songhua inkstones, reserved for the emperor’s use—he called upon Liang Jiugong to bring it forth.41 Numerous such examples show that the emperor always had one or both of these two men accompanying him, and suggest that they heard everything and knew all the secrets of the court. The two eunuchs were used to convey messages to and from Kangxi as well. During the emperor’s southern tour, the eunuch Li Yu would often come to Song’s Yamen (government office), transmitting orders from the emperor. On one occasion, the emperor sent Li Yu bearing a message that Song should come to their next meeting with some specimens of his calligraphy and poetry for them to look at together.42 The contents of the messages were not so significant: exchanges of calligraphy, an inquiry about the number and ages of Song’s sons.43 The emperor sent these two eunuchs on other sorts of errands as well. On that same tour, when the imperial barge came to Weiting, the emperor ordered Liang Jiugong to accompany clansmen and officials who were disembarking to sacrifice at the grave of Sun Deyi, an official who had served both Shunzhi and Kangxi.44 In faithfully transmitting orders for the Kangxi emperor, eunuchs Liang Jiugong and Li Yu came to prove themselves, and slowly they were trusted with more important matters. In 1696, when the emperor personally led an expedition against Galdan, the Mongol leader, it was Li Yu who was entrusted with carrying messages back and forth between the emperor and his twenty-two-year-old favorite son.45 This son was Yūnceng, child of the emperor’s favorite concubine. He was groomed to be emperor, his education supervised by Kangxi himself. In 1679, the emperor even had a palace within the grounds of the Forbidden City built for the then five-year-old heir apparent, so he could keep a close watch on him.46 But Yūnceng ended up being a terrible disappointment to his father.47 Yūnceng had been involved in a pedophilia scandal, in which he was implicated in the purchase of boys from elite Suzhou households. As if that were not crime enough, he seemed to have lost respect for everyone at court, including the emperor himself. He disobeyed Kangxi’s orders, spying on his father and assembling a clique against him. So egregious was Yūnceng’s behavior that Kangxi even came to believe that Yūnceng had been bewitched.48 When Kangxi began to learn of Yūnceng’s crimes, he had Li Yu transport secret communications about the case. Wang Hongxu, a senior Han official, conducted the investigation itself, but both he and the emperor entrusted the documents to Li Yu. Indeed, Wang urged that the emperor entrust communications on the Yūnceng matter to no one other than Li Yu.49 When Kangxi debated whether to restore Yūnceng to his position as heir apparent or to choose a new heir apparent from among his other sons, he employed

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Liang Jiugong and Li Yu as go-betweens. Kangxi remained in his palace, while the two eunuchs took oral messages between him and his senior officials (led by Prince Bandi). Only when Kangxi determined that the matter was too important to be handled by even these two trusted eunuchs did he arrange face-to-face meetings.50 When the eunuchs Liang Jiugong and Li Yu transmitted Kangxi’s orders, it sometimes meant they drafted and delivered documents on his behalf, presumably taking his verbal orders and putting them into writing. The document reproduced in figure 6 is an example. Dated April 26, 1702, it lists the eunuch Li Yu as first author; followed by Hesihen, an assistant department director (yuanwai lang) and personal servant to Kangxi; and Zhao Chang, an important but little-known official who worked in the Office of Imperial Inscriptions, or Yushuchu.51 The order of names confirms the view of Silas Wu that Li Yu “seemed to be a key figure in the line of communication between the emperor and the court, and he was particularly entrusted with the duty of dealing with foreigners.”52 In Kangxi’s later years, and particularly after the troubles over the heir apparent, Li Yu and Liang Jiugong began to speak more and more on behalf of the emperor. Moreover, the issues these two eunuchs dealt with edged much closer to those of governance. Three examples illustrate this shift. On October 20, 1706, when the emperor was away on a hunting expedition, Li Yu transmitted an order with detailed questions about the amounts of money spent on memorial arches for successful examination candidates.53 On March 18, 1709, Liang Jiugong was said to have transmitted a decree calling for the construction of a new barracks outside Donghua Gate to house imperial bodyguards, because they were needed on a regular basis, closer to the palace residence.54 On another occasion, Liang Jiugong informed the bondservant Cao Yin that his two daughters would become imperial princesses: one would be married to Prince Naersu; the other would also be married into a princely household.55 In theory, Liang Jiugong was just transmitting what the emperor had said, but the extent of his autonomy and the method of transmission (verbal or in writing) are hard to ascertain. Therein lies the ambiguity and power of the term chuanzhi, which covered many circumstances. The increasing influence accorded to Li Yu and Liang Jiugong fit the pattern of malevolent Ming eunuchs “using small instances of loyalty to gain trust,” which had worried seventeenth-century writers. Kangxi trusted himself to maintain limits on these two eunuchs, but he did not trust Yūnceng to do the same. In a 1699 edict to his son, he warned him about choosing eunuchs, and told him that when he himself used the “extremely clever” Liang Jiugong, he remained “fully on guard.”56 By the turn of the eighteenth century, Liang Jiugong and Li Yu had achieved careers that would be the envy of any eunuch. They were right-hand men of the emperor, and also enormously wealthy—and not afraid to flaunt it. Following in the tradition of wealthy and powerful Ming eunuchs, they determined to rebuild a temple, but this was a joint rather than an individual endeavor. Work began in the

figure 6. Li Yu’s order, 1702.

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first years of the eighteenth century on the grounds of the Fatong Temple (Temple of the Perfection of Law), which had been constructed in the Yuan and reconstructed in the Ming, but by then lay in ruins. The sumptuousness of the completed temple provides some idea of the eunuchs’ mighty influence: it incorporated a monastery and contained three giant Buddhas (Three Great Beings, San da shi),57 eighteen Lohans, four Buddha’s warrior attendants, one Maitreya Buddha, a rear court with its own Buddha, a western courtyard with Buddha seated on a lotus flower, an eastern hall with its own deity, a western hall for the teaching of the dharma, and an outer area with an array of Buddhist statuary. There were two specially cast iron bells, an iron stone, a drum, and many other elaborate features.58 To ensure the temple’s perpetual health, Liang and Li purchased 10 qing of land (about 165 acres) in Beitaiping Zhuang, a village to the west of Beijing (now a center for high tech), the income of which would support the temple. A six-and-ahalf-foot stele was erected on the temple grounds commemorating the reconstruction, with calligraphy by a famous scholar. The stele paid tribute to the emperor, as well as to the parents of the two eunuchs, and described the two patrons as filial sons who had translated their filial piety into loyalty to the emperor. Thus it was, it continued, that they determined to rebuild the temple, and pay homage to and bring blessings upon the emperor, and bring blessings upon their parents (who were acknowledged by name on the stele; all four were still alive, but were reaching old age). Devout Buddhists, they had done much for other people, but had not sought rewards in return. This temple would bring them and the emperor blessings.59 This formulation, with its emphasis on filial piety, was normally reserved for officials, and suggests the extent to which the two eunuchs considered themselves officials in the Ming model, rather than lowly servants. Once completed, the temple was renamed Jingyin Temple, or Temple of Pure Reason, perhaps in reference to the purest form of charity—done without promise of reward—which characterized the charity of the eunuchs’ parents, according to the stele. It may also have been chosen for its hidden meaning: the first character, “pure,” was one of many euphemisms for eunuchs—and for castration in particular. The temple may have been established and named with the idea of honoring eunuchs; indeed, the Ming-era temple that preceded it had been built, patronized, and frequented by Ming eunuchs—a fact that would have been known to Liang and Li.60 Kangxi honored his two faithful servants by presenting the temple with a plague, engraved in his own calligraphy, with the characters jing yin. The Two Eunuchs Fall from Grace The Jingyin Temple construction was a daring display for two eunuchs, and completely unlike eunuch temple patronage in later reigns. Alas, these two trusted eunuchs were both destined to fall from favor. The details are somewhat sketchy,

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but their demise almost certainly had to do with troubles over the heir apparent and the succession to the throne. Li Yu covertly joined the clique of Yūnsy, the emperor’s eighth and disfavored son, and colluded to have an official in the imperial kitchen (a man whose role in the affair remains unclear) removed from service.61 The details of Li Yu’s punishment are not known, although we do know that there was a complete inquiry into, and confiscation of, his and his family’s assets. Though the full accounting does not survive, one document hints at his affluence, and the wealth he brought his family members. He had lent approximately sixty thousand taels of silver to a party in Beijing, and that credit was due the court. His younger brother Li Zhu had investments in five different pawnshops in the Beijing and Tianjin area, with an investment of about forty-seven thousand taels. Records showed that Li Yu had also used thirty thousand taels to purchase a house of over six hundred jian, and lands of more than 270 qing.62 Details on Liang Jiugong’s fall from grace are also scarce, though he likely also became a partisan of Yūnsy; given his close relationship with Li, it is not surprising that he supported the same son. Kangxi’s growing distrust of Liang Jiugong may also have played a role. In 1699, the same year in which he had warned the heir apparent to be on guard about this cunning eunuch, Liang was transferred from his position in the imperial living quarters. Although he kept his chief eunuch rank, he was assigned to become supervisor of three subordinate eunuch offices63— a job with less access to confidential information. In 1712, it came to light that at some earlier time he had colluded with an assistant chief eunuch, Wei Guozhu, to misuse funds from the food supply to these three offices. This clearly was not the event that caused his demise, however: by that time he had already fallen from favor, and was under house arrest in the West Garden at the Changchun Yuan.64 It is quite possible that he lost Kangxi’s trust for misdeeds during the tense negotiations of late December 1708, when Liang and Li were tasked with passing messages back and forth between Kangxi and his highest officials.65 We do know that 1712 marked an important moment in his downfall, when his properties were confiscated and his family members exiled for military service.66 Investigations following the death of Liang Jiugong hint at his wealth as well, which was diverse and sometimes well hidden. It included lands he had purchased near the imperial summer villa at Rehe, with houses he most likely rented to soldiers and other minor officials stationed there.67 He had also used the same strategy to boost his income in Beitaiping Zhuang, the village on the western side of Beijing where he and Li Yu had bought lands to support the temple. He purchased 65 mu of land there and constructed twenty-nine roof-tiled houses and two earthen huts. They were doubtless a fraction of his holdings, but they enter the historical record because he gave them to a household member (perhaps sensing that his position in the imperial household was in danger), and they became the subject of litigation.68

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To further illustrate how complex and far-reaching was the eunuch’s wealth, he also lent money at various times to a household member’s adopted son, who used it for commercial and household rentals, the income from which allowed him to make land purchases and to lend money to others for interest. When the son learned there would be a renewed search for Liang Jiugong’s assets, he persuaded a commoner to say that he had given him a sum of money and houses in compensation of debt. All these funds were due the government when Liang Jiugong’s property was confiscated and his family members punished with military exile.69 The complex web of investments and reinvestment in this case hints at the obscure sources of income for these wealthy Kangxi-era eunuchs.70 Liang Jiugong drops from the historical record soon after his confinement in the West Garden at the Changchun Yuan. But an interesting document emerged, one that marks the last word we have on him while he still lived. Among the documents discovered in the palace after the Republican revolution was a box of edicts that were never put through official channels; as a result, their contents do not appear in any of the traditional compilations of edicts. Many appear to be simply notes, usually from the emperor, that were delivered directly to their recipient. Few have reliable dates. One of them mentions Liang Jiugong, and was written by Kangxi: “The superintendent of the West Garden reports that Liang Jiugong has gotten a malignant skin ulcer, and his situation is not good. You should quickly send someone to see him and to treat him. This illness is of the utmost urgency. If there is any change in his condition you should send him home to his father. Liang’s people should also be sent with him. If Liang Jiugong’s condition improves somewhat, show this note to him.”71 This short note suggests so much. The emperor’s onetime favorite eunuch is under house arrest, but Kangxi still cares enough about him to order that a doctor be speedily sent to care for him. If he is incurable, Kangxi wants Liang to have the chance to spend time with his father before he dies—and to travel home in the company of “his people” (worded vaguely enough to mean anyone he wishes to bring). The final line is perhaps most interesting of all. Kangxi wants Liang Jiugong to know he still cares. Liang Jiugong apparently recovered from his illness, and was moved to confinement on Jing Shan, just behind the Forbidden City. In the end he outlived Kangxi, but not for long. He committed suicide, hanging himself on Jing Shan, likely just after Yongzheng ascended the throne. The only record of his death appears in an early Qing miscellany: The chief eunuch of the previous reign, Liang Jiugong, hanged himself on Jing Shan. He had served Kangxi, and along with Wei Zhu had become greatly trusted. He had many contacts among the officialdom, but later ran afoul of the law. But because of his advanced age he was treated leniently, and was imprisoned on Jing Shan. Fearing punishment, however, he hanged himself. The emperor [Yongzheng], however, remembered his years of service, and felt pity, so he bestowed money for his funeral.72

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T H E L AT E - KA N G X I - E R A E U N U C H C H E N F U

As suggested above, biographical information about eunuchs can be hard to come by, but some facts about the eunuch Chen Fu can be gleaned from the essay that appeared on his tombstone.73 Chen Fu would serve a remarkably important role in the Kangxi period, especially during the emperor’s last years, when the eunuch would become a surrogate in some of Kangxi’s most important negotiations, speaking for the emperor in vital matters. Born in 1685, Chen was a native of Dong’an County, in Shuntian Prefecture (outside the capital). He entered the palace in 1698, the thirty-seventh year of Kangxi’s reign, when he was a boy of eleven sui. Just five years later, when he was sixteen sui, and Kangxi was forty-nine years old, he was selected to serve the emperor personally as attaché to the emperor’s suite (yuqian xingzou). This post was, as Evelyn Rawski notes, a stepping-stone to the senior-level guard posts that were created during the Kangxi period.74 Indeed, he would be promoted to the role of imperial guard after Yongzheng came to the throne. Chen Fu’s Role in Diplomacy In the decades that followed Chen Fu’s arrival in the palace, Kangxi gave him more and more responsibility. In the last five years of the emperor’s life, we see Chen Fu, by then in his early thirties, serving as go-between, softening the ire of the emperor and conveying imperial intent in ways that seem almost like a usurpation of imperial power. Chen Fu’s role in the palace is most evident during the Second Papal Legation in 1721. The purpose of this legation was to resolve once and for all the Chinese Rites Controversy, a long-standing dispute within the Roman Catholic Church about whether traditional Chinese rituals, such as sacrifices to the altars of one’s parents and to Confucius, constituted paganism. The stakes were high: if the rites were deemed pagan, Chinese converts could not perform them, and the church would face an uphill battle in converting China to Catholicism. In 1704, Rome had sent a papal legate by the name of De Tournon to help settle the controversy. Kangxi, aged fifty and still vigorous, engaged in extensive discussions with him, but the issue of the Chinese Rites Controversy was not resolved. Twenty years later, Rome planned to send another legate to the emperor to resolve the controversy, but by then Kangxi was far from the man he had been during the first legation. His death was only a few years away; he sensed that his powers were waning, and was deeply troubled by the vicious squabbling among his sons. This time Kangxi was skeptical and took a harder stance against the Catholics, even ordering an investigation of the two fathers who came bearing the papal letter. He also questioned them about their attitudes toward Teodorico Pedrini, one of the Beijing fathers who, since early 1720, had been imprisoned by command of the

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emperor.75 Only after careful investigation was Kangxi willing to accept the papal letter, as well as the legate himself, Mezzabarba, who would arrive later that year. It was during this visit that Chen Fu’s important role became most apparent. As with other Kangxi-era eunuchs, Chen Fu’s influence emanated from his power to transmit imperial edicts. Most often, the details of meetings—the technical aspects of their agreements—were worked out by eunuchs while they were composing written versions of the emperor’s verbal orders. This extent of influence alone is fairly significant; it is unimaginable that eunuchs would play this role in a later period. Their doing so in the Kangxi period is evidence of the persistence of Ming practices. Yet Chen Fu went further than simply promulgating written versions of the Kangxi emperor’s verbal orders; often he would arrive to verbalize imperial orders himself. We know this from the account of Father Matteo Ripa, an Italian missionary who was resident at court from 1711 to 1723, and who was deeply familiar with events. According to Ripa’s account, Kangxi grew very frugal in his later years, and sent Chen Fu to check up on the European missionaries’ use of funds. The emperor had been supplying them food from his own table, and when he remembered that they were also receiving an allowance of twelve taels per month, he worried they were double-dipping. In their defense, they explained to Chen Fu that they wished to retain the monthly allowance so they could prepare European-style food in their own quarters.76 It fell to Chen Fu to smooth out misunderstandings between the parties, and we see him repeatedly softening the emperor’s position. In a meeting that took place on December 12, 1720, his own friendliness toward the missionaries, and the freedom with which he spoke about the emperor’s intentions toward them, were abundantly apparent. He began by calling a group of them before him and asking Father Ripa to kneel. With joy, he told Father Ripa that he could go inform Father Pedrini that the emperor had pardoned him. Then, in an extraordinary moment, he told the missionaries: “You Europeans ought not to think that His Majesty wishes to kill or expel any European from China. True, His Majesty has often said that he would do as much; but he will never do it. Your affairs are but trifles. His Majesty desires that you live in peace and harmony among yourselves; hence, he wishes to give nothing but fair treatment to the apostolic legate who is to arrive at Beijing.”77 Thus it was that this eunuch helped smooth the way for a good meeting— by sharing with the priests his personal insight into the emperor’s state of mind. On another occasion, when some of the missionaries began to suggest that the emperor had been so overly kind to Mezzabarba that he must have been speaking ironically, Chen Fu again smoothed the relationship. Noticing Mezzabarba’s agitated state, he urged him to ignore the voices of the others and take the emperor at his word.78

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Trouble was still not over, however, for this delicate moment in Sino-Western relations, and the legate’s visit was to end on a sour note. In February 1721, Kangxi granted Mezzabarba an audience, and presented him with a diary of events (in Latin translation from the Chinese) that had taken place. Kangxi intended for the document to be presented to the pope as a true record of what had transpired, and asked that all missionaries in the party sign onto it. All agreed to sign (even Father Ripa, after some hesitation), with the exception of Father Pedrini, who argued that he had not assisted in gathering the facts, and he objected to some of the language. The emperor interrogated Pedrini personally, and finally ordered that he be beaten, loaded with the nine-tailed lock, and thrown back into prison. It fell to the eunuch Chen Fu to relate to the missionaries what had transpired, and the fact that in all likelihood Pedrini would be sentenced to death for his actions, whereupon Mezzabarba fell to his knees and begged that Pedrini be spared. Chen Fu agreed to take the matter up with the emperor; he returned with an imperial decree that spared Pedrini’s life, but that also suggested it might be best to prohibit the practice of Catholicism within the empire.79 In Loyal Service to Three Emperors Chen Fu would go on to many years of service in the imperial household, as servant to Yongzheng and then Qianlong. He received a promotion to imperial guard of the third rank once Yongzheng ascended the throne. He spent four years guarding the imperial tombs, then was called back to serve in the Qianqing Gong (Palace of Heavenly Purity). When Qianlong ascended the throne, he was sent to serve in Qianlong’s beloved mother’s palace. In 1756, he received special gifts from the emperor for his years of service. When he died three years later, the emperor and his mother each bestowed two hundred taels of gold for funeral expenses; imperial concubines also gave condolence gifts. He lived a long life, and was honored by three emperors. Chen Fu’s transfers following Kangxi’s death, however, are revealing. He was sent first to the imperial tombs and then to the household of the dowager empress: these reflected his honored status—but they also showed that Yongzheng and then Qianlong wished to keep him further from positions of power than had Kangxi. We know these facts from the inscription on his funeral stele. Following Mingstyle traditions, the stele text was composed and inscribed by a distinguished person, which in this case was Deboo, a Manchu bondservant and member of the Sokolo clan. Deboo mentions that when he went to pay respects at the palace of the empress dowager, it was Chen Fu who came out to convey her wishes. It was through these meetings that Deboo had come to know and admire Chen Fu as a prudent, hardworking, disciplined, and honest eunuch who was respected by his colleagues. Like Gu Wenxing, Chen Fu managed to serve in three reigns without scandal—but this was certainly not the case with Wei Zhu, the subject of the following section.

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T H E L AT E - KA N G X I - E R A E U N U C H W E I Z H U : O N E O F T H E M O ST P OW E R F U L O F Q I N G E U N U C H S

As a young boy, Wei Zhu went walking with his grandfather in the hills that lay to the west of Beijing. On the return trip, they stopped at Dinghui Si, a once-great Ming dynasty temple (see figure 7), now lying dilapidated. Seeing its sorry state, grandfather and grandson could not help sighing. Just then, a Daoist priest appeared; speaking in a crazed voice, he predicted that in the future a great man would return and rebuild the temple. At that moment, the young Wei Zhu determined that he would make something of his life and become that great man. Not long after, he resolved to become a eunuch and enter palace service. As it turned out, he would fulfill the wild Daoist’s prophecy, first becoming one of the most powerful of Qing eunuchs, and then rebuilding the temple and erecting the stele that told this story from his youth.80 It is not known exactly when Wei Zhu entered the service of the Kangxi emperor, although one source suggests that he had served the emperor since the latter’s boyhood.81 It is clear, however, that the key to his future influence lay in his extremely good education and broad range of skills. His period of service overlapped with that of Li Yu and Liang Jiugong, but his influence eclipsed theirs. Because Wei Zhu was highly literate, he could transmit and even draft documents for the Kangxi emperor. Just as important, perhaps, this ambitious eunuch had early on dedicated himself to acquiring a skill set that would be both useful and interesting to his master. Kangxi’s interests became Wei Zhu’s passions, and the eunuch took to studying his master’s hobbies with alacrity. In this sense, his style reflected eunuchs of old—and in particular Ming eunuchs. An incident from the year 1715 offers a glimpse of Wei Zhu’s practical skills. During that year Kangxi learned that his prodigal son, Yūnceng, was vying for reinstatement as heir apparent and was in secret communication with Duke Puji, who he hoped would recommend him for an important military post.82 The two had exchanged correspondence written with alum water, a sort of invisible ink. Kangxi knew only one person who could decipher that alum-water writing, and that person was Wei Zhu. Not only could the eunuch decipher the writing, but he could also verify that the handwriting was Yūnceng’s.83 Apparently, Wei Zhu knew Yūnceng’s calligraphy better than did his father. John Bell, a Scottish visitor to the court of Kangxi, described Wei Zhu’s wideranging knowledge and practical skills. He notes that Wei, whom he referred to as the captain of the eunuchs, was “a great favourite of the Emperor, on account of the knowledge he had acquired in mathematics and mechanics.” During the visit of Count Ismailoff, discussed in some detail below, Wei visited the Russian ambassador and made him a gift of an enameled gold watch and an air rifle, both of which he had made himself. Bell attributed Kangxi’s favor toward Wei Zhu to the eunuch’s skills in those areas that most interested the emperor.84

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figure 7. Steles at Dinghui Si. Photo by Lei Duan.

Kangxi and Wei Zhu were also great fans of opera, and Wei was himself a connoisseur, and extremely knowledgeable about the genres performed in the palace. In the same collection of informal edicts in which we see notice of Liang Jiugong’s illness (mentioned above), we find a lengthy disquisition, in an order transmitted by Wei Zhu, discussing the various genres of Kunqu, the Ming-style opera. The recipients were the officials and musicians, unnamed, who were responsible for palace music. The phrasing suggests that Wei Zhu had composed the edict on behalf of the emperor, perhaps acting on his own accord, or perhaps with the general assent of the emperor. We know this, first, because it is literary in nature and highly refined at that, with parallel phrasing characteristic of formal prose—and

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thus it would not be the transcription of a verbal order. Moreover, the edict’s praise for the emperor refers to him in the third person, and in especially florid language: “How can you be free for even one day?” the edict asks these officials. “With good rewards from the emperor for yourselves and your families, it would be hard for you to repay the emperor’s generosity.” This is followed by a long disquisition on music history, the relationship between tone and music, a discussion of northern versus southern styles of Kunqu, the corruption of the forms from their original, and a statement about the purity of northern forms as practiced in the palace (because they had been taught teacher-to-student in a closed environment). Finally, the edict ends with an exhortation: “You should practice more, and read day and night. You should examine the pronunciations of the four tones carefully, being sure to get the tones from the words, and to get the principle of movement from tones.”85 The edict suggests Wei Zhu’s autonomy (that he could speak on behalf of the emperor) and passion for opera—but also his pedantry. A Eunuch’s Role in Rituals Wei Zhu’s role in carefully choreographed imperial ritual provides further evidence of his important position in the palace. In 1713, the emperor sent him to Yaji Mountain (about seventy miles northeast of the Forbidden City), a Daoist sacred place originally constructed in the Tang dynasty. More than ten years earlier, the court had begun to contribute funds for the renovation of temples on the mountain. Wei would now play a vital role in the initiation ceremonies for the construction of the Jade Emperor Pavilion at the mountain’s summit. He and two of Kangxi’s sons were sent to bestow incense; accompanying the party from the capital were other high officials and forty-eight Daoist dignitaries. On the first evening of the festivities, lanterns were arrayed around the mountain, scattered “like the stars in the sky,” flooding the mountain with light. It was an extraordinary and auspicious display, it was said, and altogether twenty to thirty thousand people were present. At the height of the festivities, the Daoist Li Juxiang announced the start of construction of the pavilion, followed by Wei Zhu, who offered a memorial from the emperor, along with funds from the privy purse totaling five thousand taels, to be used toward construction.86 Wei Zhu’s prominence in the ceremonies and his presentation of the funds from Kangxi substantiate his role as the emperor’s personal representative at these events. Furthermore, permission to travel outside the capital on business was a mark of special favor—one that was reminiscent of Ming eunuchs. We see further evidence of Wei Zhu’s importance in events that transpired in 1718, during the funeral services held for Kangxi’s beloved grandmother. Although the funeral rituals included the participation of many male and female members of the family, it was once again Wei Zhu who played the key role, serving as speaker for Kangxi as he read the emperor’s edict to the assembled people.87

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Surrogate for an Aging Emperor Father Ripa, the Catholic missionary at Kangxi’s court, observed that Wei Zhu often spoke for the emperor. Other eunuchs, such as Chen Fu, likewise did so. Wei Zhu, however, stands above the other eunuchs depicted in Ripa’s account, where he is described as the “first eunuch of the imperial presence.”88 By that time, the waning years of the Kangxi era, Wei Zhu had come to surpass other key eunuchs in importance.89 A vivid image of Wei Zhu’s personality emerges from Father Ripa’s account of the visit of Count Leoff Ismailoff, sent by Peter the Great to the court of Kangxi. Ritual was of critical importance in this formal visit. On November 29, 1720, Ismailoff entered the city with great fanfare, accompanied by a retinue of ninety persons, who were led by a handsomely dressed soldier with drawn sword. The count himself was on horseback—according to the account, flanked by a dwarf on one side and a giant on the other. Kangxi dispatched an honor guard of five hundred soldiers to clear the way for him, and after his arrival entertained him with food from his own table.90 Controversy soon erupted, however, over Ismailoff ’s presentation of the letter bearing his credentials. Peter the Great had ordered him to place his letter directly into Kangxi’s hands. Chinese practice, however, insisted on another protocol requiring an ambassador to kowtow to the emperor, and then place the letter on a table in the audience hall. A Chinese official would then retrieve the letter and deliver it to the emperor. Ismailoff objected: performing the kowtow, he argued, would be disrespectful to his own sovereign; he could agree only to the customary obeisance European ambassadors made before kings. Even worse, Ismailoff protested, the table requirement would cause him to disobey his instruction to deliver the document into Kangxi’s hands. Kangxi sent Wei Zhu—along with one of the eunuch’s pages, the president of the Board of Rites,91 and five of the missionary interpreters—to resolve the standoff. Ripa’s account makes clear that Wei Zhu was the most important member of this group, eclipsing even the president of the Board of Rites. At Kangxi’s direction, they offered a concession: Ismailoff could, if he wished, present the letter from the czar through the official memorial channel used by high-ranking Chinese officials. The count rejected this plan, too, because though it would allow him to avoid the kowtow, he would still not be placing the letter directly into the hands of the emperor. At this juncture, Wei Zhu offered an elegant solution to the dilemma. He recalled that an age-old Chinese custom allowed the emperor’s subjects to petition him directly by approaching him on the road and placing the petition into his hands. Kangxi himself had accepted such petitions; in one case, during a visit to Hangzhou, he had read the petition of a man who swam up to his boat with the petition tied around his neck.92 If this privilege was extended to Ismailoff, Wei Zhu suggested, the count could simply travel on horseback to a place along the route of

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the emperor’s return from Rehe. As the emperor’s chair and entourage approached, Ismailoff could dismount, then kneel to place the petition directly into the emperor’s hands. Ismailoff would maintain his dignity, because he could arrive on horseback, and dismount only when the emperor approached, and he could avoid having to perform the kowtow—while still fulfilling the czar’s requirement that the letter be put directly into Kangxi’s hands. This solution, too, was unacceptable to Ismailoff; maintaining his own dignity and the dignity of his sovereign required that he present the petition not on the road, but in the same audience hall where ambassadors were customarily received. Ismailoff ’s flat refusal of this accommodation, Ripa observed, was an affront to Chinese pride, but Wei Zhu simply smiled in response. The eunuch’s less tactful page, however, turned to the missionaries (who were translating) and described Ismailoff as “a man dazed and without reason.”93 In the end, it was Kangxi who got the upper hand. He agreed to allow Ismailoff to kneel and place the letter into his hands, but on the day the rituals were being performed he left the rather disagreeable count kneeling a good long while before he finally accepted the letter.94 In all of these events, the president of the Board of Rites apparently said little, and it was left to Wei Zhu to serve as chief negotiator.95 Ripa’s account also demonstrates that the eunuchs, and Wei Zhu especially, sat in judgment on the moral climate of the palace. When rumors began to circulate that Ripa was sexually abusing the young Chinese men studying in his school, the missionaries grew anguished because one of them had overheard a court painter reporting the matter to a chief eunuch (most likely Wei Zhu). The scandal could threaten to shut down Ripa’s school; the priest who relayed the story sensed that Ripa’s fate lay in the eunuch’s hands and that securing his support was essential to the squelching of the rumor.96 One should be wary of overestimating Wei Zhu’s influence, however. Father Ripa viewed him in situations that were dominated by the inner court and the imperial household. Even the visit of ambassadors from European powers generally fell within the purview of these two inner-court bodies. Yet Wei Zhu’s influence, and the trust he earned from Kangxi, were plain. Given this trust, how do we understand Wei Zhu’s ultimate betrayal of his master? The best answer I can offer is something of a conjecture. In the waning years of the Kangxi reign, the aging emperor’s senior eunuchs faced a difficult reality. They had attained their stations through personal loyalty to him, and with the prospect of his death, they faced the strong possibility of demotion or forced retirement. As the various sons of Kangxi waged their bitter struggles for the throne, eunuchs were willing to be their agents, partly because whichever son they served might chance to become emperor. Eunuchs also became increasingly open to bribery, because of the security money could provide. Even if Wei Zhu ended up unemployed, he would have a thicker cushion of cash to fund

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his retirement. Furthermore, if the bribe was coming from Yūntang, the wealthiest of Kangxi’s sons, it was certain to be a hefty sum indeed. That part of Wei Zhu’s story, however, unfolds in the following chapter. C O N C LU SIO N : T H E SP E C IA L P L AC E O F E U N U C H S I N T H E KA N G X I R E IG N

In the first decade of the eighteenth century, Zha Shenxing (1650–1727), a poet and scholar, began compiling A Record of the Human Sea (Ren hai ji).97 As the title suggests, the book recorded the wide range of events that took place in the era in which the writer lived. In 1702, he met and impressed the Kangxi emperor, and in the following years he was appointed to the Imperial Study and was made a court poet.98 While working at court, he doubtless encountered many eunuchs; the subject comes up more than once in his Record of the Human Sea. By referencing the eunuchs, the author was likely offering a subtle critique of Kangxi’s lenient eunuch policies. Zha’s distrust of eunuchs is not surprising, given that he was a student of Huang Zongxi. As noted in chapter 1, Huang’s father had suffered mightily at the hands of Ming eunuchs, and Huang Zongxi certainly passed his hard-won views of their evils on to his student Zha Shenxing. A Record of the Human Sea also contains a concise few sentences on eunuch education in the Ming dynasty. “Hongwu’s rules had been that eunuchs should not be permitted to study or become literate,” Zha wrote. “In the Xuande reign Hanlin officials were selected to teach eunuchs [so that eventually] eunuchs were able to wield the brush [and draft edicts for the emperor]. Eunuch mismanagement began with this.” Zha’s description might well have been a subtle criticism of the Kangxi palace, where powerful, educated eunuchs were transmitting orders on Kangxi’s behalf, in the form of written documents. Elsewhere in the book, a reprinted edict about Li Yu is likely a subtle criticism of the responsibility Kangxi gave him.99 Elsewhere in the book, Zha includes a long and careful catalog of all the eunuchs in the palace and their offices, including eunuchs who worked in the various imperial studies, and those literate in Manchu and Chinese. The tally clearly indicates that Kangxi’s eunuchs were educated and in high positions. Education was one important way in which Kangxi eunuchs were a throwback to the Ming, but as this chapter suggests, there were others as well. The power to transmit edicts, with all the fluid meanings the term afforded, made Kangxi-era eunuchs resemble their Ming forebears, as did the large temple-renovation projects undertaken by the chief eunuchs, with their grand steles and inscriptions by high officials. To these we may add the important role of imperial adviser played by Liang Jiugong, Li Yu, Chen Fu, and Wei Zhu—and their encroachments into matters of governance. We also note the sending of eunuchs on missions from the capital, such as those undertaken by Li Yu—likewise a Ming practice.

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There is a novel feature of Kangxi’s eunuchs, however, that warrants attention. This chapter exposes a fluidity in their roles that would be unimaginable by the Qianlong reign, and perhaps in earlier periods as well. Chen Fu was probably the best example; the eunuch garnered titles usually reserved for officials and for elite Manchu and Mongol officers. Not only was he awarded the jinshi degree—the highest rank in the civil examination system, and an honor that would not be awarded a eunuch in later reigns; he was also awarded the position of “attaché to the emperor’s suite” (yuqian xingzou). Chen Fu was even made an imperial guard by Yongzheng, to reward his service to Kangxi. The flexibility of these eunuchs’ roles is also reflected in the stele in Li Yu and Liang Jiugong’s temple, which frames their loyalty within the model reserved for officials—that loyalty to the emperor originated in filial piety toward one’s parents—rather than in the absolute way generally required of eunuchs. Kangxi clearly did not see any of these issues as problems for his reign. He addressed only one of them explicitly: his practice of using eunuchs as advisers. He took up the subject late in his reign (1714), not long after Li Yu and Liang Jiugong had fallen from favor. Speaking to his top advisers and to Songzhu, a member of the Bordered White Banner and president of the Board of Rites, he said that although he used eunuchs in the role of advisers, there was an important distinction between himself and the Ming rulers: he would never isolate himself within the palace. Instead, he met frequently and directly with his top officials, so eunuchs could never become go-betweens and exploit their position to usurp power. Speaking for the group, Songzhu responded with an affirmation: “We are so fortunate to live in such a great era in which we can report to Your Majesty in person. So we don’t have to ask any favors from eunuchs and we are not afraid of them.”100 As the next chapter illustrates, Kangxi’s ostensible views did not fit the reality of his last years.

5

Eunuch Loyalties in the Yongzheng Emperor’s Troubled Succession

A chapter on eunuchs in the Yongzheng period must begin with the last dozen years of the Kangxi emperor’s life. In this turbulent era, as suggested in the previous chapter, Kangxi’s sons waged a fierce battle for the throne. Eunuchs were the foot soldiers in this battle, and were adept at the particular skills this form of warfare required: they were expert at gathering and relaying information, spreading misinformation, and even beating up their master’s adversaries. Moreover, they won the trust of their masters through what sometimes was, and sometimes only appeared to be, unswerving loyalty. Once Kangxi was dead and his son, the Yongzheng emperor, came to the throne, the new emperor crafted policies for eunuch governance shaped largely by three factors: his experience during the succession; his observation of the role senior eunuchs played in his father’s government; and his own desire to bring greater rationality to eunuch management. The story of Yongzheng’s succession is considered one of the great mysteries of the Qing dynasty. From the very start of his reign, there were those who questioned the legitimacy of his succession. Some went so far as to suggest he poisoned his ailing father to gain the throne. Still others said that his father had chosen his fourteenth son, Yūnti, to succeed him, but that Yongzheng altered several characters in the will so that it showed his own name rather than his brother’s.1 Both of these theories can be traced to rumors spread by disgruntled eunuchs. One of Yongzheng’s first actions upon his succession was to banish miscreant eunuchs from his brothers’ households. When bands of them traveled, they were heard recounting strange tales: some told of Yongzheng falsifying his father’s will; others told of a ginseng potion offered by Yongzheng to Kangxi, after which the emperor suddenly died.2 108

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The role of eunuchs adds a layer of mystery, with some tantalizing hints suggesting that these men may have been more than just able foot soldiers in the struggle for succession. Yongzheng’s accusation that his brother Yūntang (one of the wealthiest and most powerful men of his age) chose an ethnically Han grand secretary as household manager in order “to impress the inner-court eunuchs and earn the admiration of outer-court officials” carried with it a stunning admission: that eunuchs were not simply servants but also an audience that needed impressing.3 On an earlier occasion, just after ascending the throne, Yongzheng went so far as to suggest in an edict that they had instigated wrongdoing. “In the households of my brothers there are several evil eunuchs who have lured [yinyou] their masters into wrongdoing,” he wrote. What followed, however, was equally fascinating: a rationalization for why he would not investigate the wrongdoing of eunuchs in his brothers’ entourages. “If we carefully investigate their guilt,” he continued, “it will in many cases implicate their masters. But I am ever mindful of the natural affection between brothers, and wish to preserve it from damage. For this reason I will exile these evil eunuchs to distant places. I have already considered this matter handled smoothly, and nothing more than the meting out of punishment to servants. There is no need to record it in the archives.”4 Yongzheng’s claim of brotherly affection seems disingenuous, given how ugly the succession was, and, as we shall see, given that during his reign he would allow two of his brothers to languish in prison. He then uses this dubious notion of brotherly affection to justify leniency for his brothers’ eunuchs, whom he sends into exile; he then concludes by saying that it would not be necessary to record the eunuchs’ misdoings. Conscious of posterity’s judgment of his family, he apparently did not want the evil deeds of eunuchs and their masters revealed to history. Eunuchs knew the most intimate secrets of the princely households, were involved in the succession crisis, and in at least some cases were the cause of problems. Given the Yongzheng emperor’s refusal to hold an open inquiry or allow details to be recorded in the archives, however, we cannot expect a full and open revelation of their role in events. Another mystery of the succession is whether Yongzheng, too, deployed trusted eunuchs as agents. Here we have only one line, in a contemporary account, mentioning that in the fourth year of his reign, Yongzheng dispatched the chief minister of the imperial household and the minister of the Board of Rites, along with two eunuchs, to Baoding, to find and confiscate gold and silver belonging to his brother.5 No other eunuchs appear in the record as trusted agents sent by Yongzheng on important missions. More than a few historians of Qing China, including the esteemed scholars Meng Sen, Feng Erkang, and Wang Zhonghan, have weighed in on various aspects of Yongzheng’s succession. In the English language, Silas H. L. Wu’s 1979 book Passage to Power remains a landmark study of the succession crisis.6 More recently, Yang Zhen’s important study of the nature of Qing imperial power includes careful

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analysis of Manchu-language documents related to the succession.7 Yet absent the discovery of new sources, the complete truth behind Yongzheng’s succession is likely to remain incomplete. The goal of this chapter is not to solve the mystery, but rather to glimpse the role eunuchs played in the succession—not an easy task, given that Yongzheng hoped to conceal as many of the sordid aspects of the family’s infighting as possible. Chapter 6 will then address Yongzheng’s innovative policies for eunuch management and their possible relationship to eunuch activity during the succession. We begin here with a discussion of the eunuchs who served Kangxi’s sons, and specifically with those who served Yūnceng, Kangxi’s favorite son and sometime heir apparent. EUNUCHS AND YŪNCENG

We catch some glimpses of the eunuchs in Yūnceng’s household, both during the years he served as heir apparent and while he was under house arrest. At least one historian has maintained that Yūnceng’s friendship with eunuchs contributed to his moral decline.8 When it comes to specific eunuchs, however, we know almost nothing about those who served him. The sources mention two of his most-trusted eunuchs, a Wu Jinchao and a Zhou Jinchao. The former served Yūnceng during his imprisonment and, along with other eunuchs, was used to transmit messages from the deposed heir apparent to imperial household officials. In 1717, for example, Yūnceng grew impatient with the conditions in his palace of confinement. It was a large space, yet he was cooped up there with his wives and other womenfolk, and eunuchs. With the weather getting bad, the air inside had turned downright rank. A eunuch passed his complaints outward.9 Even before his confinement, when relations between him and his father were good, trusted eunuchs carried messages between them.10 Eunuchs also sometimes got involved in more unsavory tasks. In midsummer 1715, Kangxi took his court and high officials to the imperial summer villa at Rehe. Yūnceng’s son, confined with his family in Beijing, took advantage of the relatively quiet palace to have enamelware manufactured in the imperial workshops—a clear violation of the rules. He used a eunuch named Gao Wengui to serve as intermediary between himself and the imperial workshops.11 We also know that Yūnceng’s eunuchs were important sources of information for Kangxi, particularly when his favorite son was in confinement. In 1716, while Kangxi was traveling with the empress, he received an unusual report from his nephew Manduhū, who claimed to have heard a loud noise in the night while taking his turn guarding Yūnceng. When he opened a doorway specifically designed for checking up on the wayward heir apparent, he heard Yūnceng say that the eunuch Wu Jinchao, who had been imprisoned in an empty room for dishonorable conduct, had disappeared. They searched everywhere and eventually located him in one of the back wings of the house. Upon hearing this, Kangxi was so anxious

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for information that he could not wait for his return to the palace: Wu Jinchao was to be sent to the emperor while he was en route.12 As to the other eunuch, Zhou Jinchao, we know only that Yūnceng, while still heir apparent, had entrusted him with the important task of escorting the high scholar-official and imperial tutor Gao Shiqi to Tongzhou.13 We have another tidbit of information from 1694. In that year Kangxi, who still had not appointed a new heir apparent, was planning once again to return his son Yūnceng to the position.14 At this moment, Yūnceng’s chief ally was his powerful granduncle Songgotu, who planned to increase his own power at court by backing Yūnceng and then forcing the emperor to retire.15 Songgotu had arranged the rituals, and, to Kangxi’s amazement, had staged them so that Yūnceng’s ceremonial weaponry exceeded his father’s. Kangxi took this as an affront to imperial prerogative, and a hint that a hostile faction was gathering to support Yūnceng—a faction that might be planning to push Kangxi into retirement. What worried him further was that Yūnceng’s eunuchs were taking their orders from Songgotu. Kangxi insisted that the rituals be checked against The Collected Ming Regulations (Ming huidian), and against Han, Tang, and Song dynasty precedents.16 Kangxi’s concern is further evidence that in this crisis, eunuchs were playing a role, as pawns or as agents, in the power struggles swirling around the heir apparency. Y Ū N SY ’ S E U N U C H S

Once Yūnceng was no longer a contestant for the throne, other sons began to position themselves to gather support. Chief among the contenders was Yūnsy, the emperor’s eighth son. Yūnsy’s mother had entered the palace as a maid, and was a member of the Manchu slave caste (sinjeku), although she was raised to the rank of imperial consort before his birth.17 Given his humble origins, Yūnsy had to work hard to plan a rise to the throne. He deployed a full range of measures to get his way, consulting various kinds of astrologers and a physiognomist. Something of a public-relations expert, he sent agents to Jiangsu to purchase books on his behalf, to bolster his image as scholar.18 He also pushed to accompany his father on an expedition against Mongol troops led by Galdan, to strengthen his military credentials.19 In the last chapter, we saw how he successfully allied with some of Kangxi’s most faithful eunuch servants: Li Yu and Liang Jiugong. Perhaps most shockingly, Yūnsy was not above trying to intimidate his father, Kangxi, and in December 1714, while the emperor was encamped near Yaoting, Yūnsy sent him a gift of two dying falcons, as a not-so-subtle hint that it was time for his father to stand aside.20 The men bearing the gifts were eunuchs (some sources say a eunuch and bodyguard) of Yūnsy.21 One of them, the eunuch Feng Jinchao, was tortured with finger pinchers, and revealed the identity of the two chief members of the Yūnsy faction, both of whom were Manchus: Olondai and Alingga.22 Soon thereafter, when Yūnsy

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wished to destroy evidence, he sent his eunuch Liu Zicheng to his house in Beijing to burn any records he could find. This would irk Yongzheng no end, since those records included documents in Kangxi’s handwriting, which were considered sacred.23 This episode illustrates not only the ways in which eunuchs played important roles in court machinations, but also that they were clearly informed of the larger context. They were not just trusted messengers, but informed participants who knew the key members of the factions and could be trusted with the most important of tasks. The true extent of what had taken place between Kangxi and Yūnsy did not come out until Yongzheng’s inquiries, after his ascent to the throne. As Yongzheng recalled: On that day, the emperor was angry, because of the crimes of Yūnsy that had taken place in Yaoting. He interrogated Yūnsy’s eunuch. The eunuch said, “Alingga and Olondai are in my master’s clique. You can ask those two men because they know it well.” The two men were off to the side and had no answer, and the color fell from their faces. They merely added, “If we were part of your master’s [i.e., Yūnsy’s] party, then what gifts have you seen us give him, and what gifts have you seen him give us? [Yongzheng then observed:] “How could this ridiculous chatter have fooled my father the emperor and the others who were in attendance?”24

Despite attempts to get back into Kangxi’s good graces, Yūnsy had actually put himself out of contention for the position of heir apparent.25 Once Kangxi was dead and Yongzheng enthroned, Yūnsy began to worry over his fate. Primarily to keep up appearances, Yongzheng made a public display of rebuilding his relations with this brother, even granting him honors and high offices. Behind the scenes, however, Yūnsy feared for his life, and saw many of his supporters banished.26 In the years that followed, relations between the brothers continued to sour. It seemed to Yongzheng that Yūnsy was devoting himself to making him look bad. Yūnsy’s behavior around the time of Kangxi’s death—and the incident of the dying falcons—continued to rankle. By the third year of his reign, Yongzheng had had enough.27 He described a specific episode in which Yūnsy had tried to ruin his reputation: In November 1725 he came before me [i.e., spoke to me in person] to say that his number of stipendiary armed bondservants could be reduced, and that the number subordinate to each of the assistant commandants in his employ could be reduced to twenty-four. I ordered that this change be jointly discussed and implemented. But then Yūnsy memorialized that each of his assistant commandants should have their armed bondservants increased by more than ninety subordinates! This [written request] was in complete contradiction to his earlier [verbal] request. He clearly not only wanted to bolster his own reputation, but he also wanted to give me a reputation for being ungenerous. In the past, when his bondservants and assistant commandants assembled, he permitted them to make a ruckus. When I ordered him to iden-

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tify the chief troublemaker, so that he might be punished, he put forward the person who was not the chief culprit, hoping that I would unjustly kill an innocent man; so sharp is his spite. When I obligingly increased his household staff by ninety-six, he no sooner had them caned.28

As these episodes, and Yongzheng’s response to them, suggest, the palace in this era was a place where, even for the emperor, reputation mattered considerably. Furthermore, eunuchs played an important role in spreading the rumors that furthered their masters’ reputations. Yongzheng went on to describe the rewards Yūnsy gave to his most trusted eunuch, who had been not only an obedient foot soldier, but also his chief agent in the effort to help his master move against his brothers. Other sources reveal that this eunuch, named Yan Jun (sometimes referred to in the sources as Yan Jin), had helped Yūnsy by covering up his wrongdoing. When Yūnsy ordered three eunuchs to beat to death a bodyguard by the name of Ninety-Six, it was Yan Jun who helped cover up the crime.29 Yongzheng threatened to execute all three eunuchs unless Yūnsy named one of the three culpable for the death.30 The emperor also complained about Yūnsy’s covert strategy to discredit him. Because his trusted eunuch Yan Jun routinely helped him cover up his illegal doings, he gave him gifts of two hundred taels of silver and winter and summer silk garments. Although I am emperor with absolute power [zun ju jiu wu], I have never dared to punish one innocent man. And as to making bestowals on the eunuchs who serve me, I have never distributed the amount of largesse that Yūnsy has given Yan Jun. In usurping this authority to reward and punish, Yūnsy is violating our nation’s laws, and his blame is more than worthy of death.31

Elsewhere, Yongzheng alleged that Yūnsy gave these rewards to Yan Jun because he was Yongzheng’s trusted agent and confidant, and as such kept his master’s most incriminating secrets.32 On one occasion, Yan Jun had met with the official Nian Gengyao at Qianqing Gate, and advised him that if the Kangxi emperor were to survive another nine months, he would surely have Nian executed. At the time, Nian was a highly favored official, and few could have predicted his downfall—one that would come only in the early years of the Yongzheng period. How, Yongzheng wondered, could Yan Jun have known this?33 In setting forward a plan for his investigation, Yongzheng revealed not only how harshly he would deal with Yūnsy but, again, how central eunuchs were to these family struggles. He also mentioned another of Yūnsy’s most trusted eunuchs, Chang Hai, and ordered a complete investigation of his activities.34 This interrogation revealed the above-mentioned incident in which Yūnsy had sent his eunuch Liu Zicheng to Beijing for the express purpose of destroying all incriminating documents.35 One result of this case was that Yongzheng, infuriated at Yūnsy’s behavior, chose to humiliate him by forcing him to change his name to Acina (“cur” in

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Manchu).36 At least at this stage, neither Yūnsy nor the members of his family were harmed, and even the eunuch Yan Jun was treated leniently. Yongzheng moved him into temporary service in the palace, under the supervision of the chief eunuchs, but neither questioned him nor declared him guilty. Yongzheng even allowed that if and when Yūnsy repented of his crimes, Yan Jun would be returned to him.37 Four years later, Yūnsy, now referred to in documents by his new name, Acina, was still dependent on eunuchs, in what appeared his never-ending battle to besmirch Yongzheng’s reputation. His new head eunuch, Ma Qiyun, was accused of using his connections with influential people to spread rumors “to anyone who would listen.” He was also accused of leading a gang of thugs to savagely beat someone named Liang Yongrui, who died from the attack. Yongzheng submitted the matter to the Board of Punishments, and, following their recommendation, ordered that the eunuch be sentenced to execution after the autumn assizes. His accomplices were sentenced to wear the cangue and then banished to far-off places.38 Four years later, however, the Board of Punishments took up the case again, apparently because the rumors Ma had spread were found to be treasonous. The eunuch’s body was exhumed and dismembered, and his head put on public display.39 As for Yūnsy, he would later die in prison, under unclear circumstances.40 Y Ū N TA N G’ S M E N

Acina was not the only one of Yongzheng’s brothers to suffer the humiliation of a name change; Yūntang also endured having his name changed—to Sishe, or “pig.” This brother, like Yūnsy, would also end up dying in confinement. Unlike his brother, however, Yūntang never really had aspirations to become emperor. Instead, his goal was to have a brother on the throne who would support his interests. He was, we are told, a fat and clumsy man who loved food and drink, but he was also brilliant and well connected. As the historian Yang Zhen has noted, the people he drew into his circle of connections were from a broad swath of Beijing society. They included minor local officials, men of letters and high scholar-officials, Western missionaries, palace eunuchs, and even impoverished refugees from the provinces. When Yongzheng himself wanted to criticize him, he said that Yūntang had showered benefits on Buddhists, Tibetan lamas, Daoist clergy, astrologers of all sorts, and even household slaves, all of whom he was prepared to use for his benefit.41 Yūntang also had a passion for sex, and, as in the case of Yūnceng, he had a taste for children who were from “good families.” (This proclivity had gotten Yūnceng in trouble, not because of the age of the children involved, but because their higher social class should have made them off-limits.) In acquiring these children, and in acquiring women of marriageable age, in whom he was also interested, Yūntang used the services of his trusted eunuch He Yuzhu. On at least

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two occasions, He traveled to the wealthy Yangzi Valley cities of Yangzhou and Suzhou to buy boys and girls for Yūntang’s sexual gratification. When He wanted to buy girls of marriageable age, he would pose as a would-be bridegroom and son of an ultrawealthy salt merchant. Even though he was a eunuch, he would somehow marry the girls himself and then transport them to Beijing to join Yūntang’s household.42 Another of Yūntang’s most important eunuchs was Yao Zixiao, who was trusted with the passing of highly confidential correspondence.43 Still another was Li Dacheng, a thug and bully who did whatever roughing up his boss needed him to do. Even after Yongzheng ascended the throne and sent Yūntang and his household to a military outpost in Xining (in Tibet), Li Dacheng kept up his old habits. The party was at Pingding, in Shaanxi Province, when Li Dacheng beat up some local scholar-officials, and then tried to get away with it by feigning illness during the investigation.44 The investigator, a high official named Nuomin, had let Yūntang plead ignorance and Li Dacheng feign illness—when everyone knew, Yongzheng wrote, that he was Yūntang’s chief eunuch (suggesting he was sheltering Yūntang). Manduhū, introduced earlier in this chapter, also lost his beile status over this affair, because he should have followed up the investigation, but instead he protected Yūntang, who was his neighbor and fellow clique member.45 Yūntang was by far the wealthiest of all the sons of Kangxi. From the writings of Fang Chaoying and Silas Wu we learn that much of his wealth came from commercial enterprises, many of which were illegal.46 He was, for example, involved in the contraband trade in ginseng carried on between Manchuria and China proper. His eunuch He Yuzhu was instrumental in this enterprise and was not above using his position to brutally wield power. On one occasion, Yūntang sent He Yuzhu to the northeast to dig ginseng illegally. While He was there he beat up a lawful ginseng merchant to compel him to sell ginseng at a cheap price. He then traded the ginseng for cloth, which he brought to the port at Tianjin, where he abused a customs agent to avoid having to pay taxes on it.47 Eunuchs were essential to helping Yūntang continue to build his fortune. Sometimes, their strategy was to broker relationships in which the buyer received the prestige of a royal connection. In one case, for example, they arranged for Yūntang to “adopt” (perhaps this was a euphemism) the wife of a wealthy man, for which the man would have to pay eighty thousand taels. In other cases they used simple blackmail and extortion. He Yuzhu seems to have handled the larger transactions, but there were other eunuchs for smaller scams. A eunuch named Li Jinzhong, for example, was able to extort five thousand taels from Wang Jinghui, the grandson of an eminent Shunzhi-era official. He extorted another five thousand from the Muslim Zhang Tongxi.48 The eunuch He Yuzhu would be punished for his actions: his household goods, valued at several hundreds of thousands of taels, were confiscated, and he was exiled to Heilongjiang to be enslaved to poor soldiers.49

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As for Yūntang, on the eve of his departure into exile, he continued to live his unrestrained and extravagant lifestyle. He secreted away as much as he could of his vast holdings. He sold off many of his valuables at rock-bottom prices, and merchants from all over flocked to buy them. Local people all knew he was a prince, but this fire sale of his belongings left them feeling so euphoric they called him a sage king.50 In his greatest act of generosity, he summoned all his closest eunuchs and made them gifts of gold bars, gold European watches, and other valuables.51 He would often say to these trusted eunuchs: “If I alone am punished, that’s one thing, but if my followers are taken, my heart really could not bear it. If all of you are taken away, then after a single day I will be reconciled to my own death.” We are told that all who heard this were deeply moved.52 Yūntang was doubtless so generous to his eunuchs because they had been so helpful to him. He had bribed eunuchs to inform on the Kangxi emperor’s whereabouts and state of mind, and he used them to exert influence.53 He had also used them to serve as go-betweens and couriers.54 Bribing eunuchs in the Kangxi emperor’s inner circle was no small feat, and only a man with the resources, cleverness, and influence of Yūntang could manage it. These eunuchs were, after all, highly favored men who were already extremely wealthy. One such eunuch was Li Kun, a man close to, but not fully inside, the circle of Kangxi’s top eunuchs and also a leading figure in the community of the capital’s eunuchs. Li was responsible for leading a group of two hundred palace eunuchs in establishing a temple-based society for eunuch welfare.55 (It seems plausible that Li Kun was a follower of the powerful eunuch Wei Zhu, and that bribing Li was Yūntang’s way of gaining influence with Wei Zhu.) Another was Chen Fu, the powerful Kangxi-era eunuch discussed in the last chapter. According to the deposition of Qin Daoran, who was Yūntang’s majordomo, Li and Chen were bribed to report on the goings-on in Kangxi’s daily life.56 W E I Z H U B E T R AYS H I S M A ST E R

The jewel in the crown of Yūntang’s bribery, however, was the notorious eunuch Wei Zhu, who had won Kangxi’s trust and became the most important member of his inner palace entourage. Wei Zhu had apparently been corrupt as early as 1715, when he began colluding with Yūnsy—most likely with bribery money supplied by Yūntang. Wei Zhu began doing favors for Yūnsy, and also began to sway the emperor’s sentiments. In 1716, when Yūnsy was struggling to regain Kangxi’s favor after the episode of the dying falcons, Wei Zhu elicited the emperor’s sympathy for the wayward son by exaggerating the gravity of Yūnsy’s suffering from typhoid fever. Wei Zhu had also managed to have Yūnsy’s annual princely stipend restored. For both of these deeds, we are told, Yūnsy was so grateful to Wei Zhu that he knelt before the eunuch to show his thanks.57 These favors were made possible by the

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confidence Kangxi placed in the eunuch, and by the fact that Wei Zhu served as Kangxi’s gatekeeper. Even Kangxi’s children had to send messages to their father through him.58 Yūntang was so heavily indebted to Wei Zhu that he allowed Wei to take his son as an adoptive nephew.59 Many historians mistakenly assumed that once Kangxi died and Yongzheng took the throne, Wei Zhu was put to death.60 In fact (as noted previously), he survived for many years, dying of natural causes after the death of Kangxi. There was one group, moreover, who were quite clear on the subject—the eunuchs who served in the palace during the waning years of the Qing dynasty, and who lived into the Republican period. According to The Recollections of Old Eunuchs (Lao taijian de huiyi), Wei Zhu played a critical role in the succession. As Kangxi lay dying, Wei Zhu managed to learn (tanting dao) that Yongzheng would be emperor and tipped off the heir apparent, presumably allowing him to forestall efforts by his brothers to prevent his taking the throne. Deeply indebted to the eunuch, Yongzheng asked him how he could repay him for his help. Wei allegedly responded, “Your slave could not dare to ask for anything, but if you gave me a city that would be magnanimous.” So when Yongzheng became emperor, he put Wei Zhu in charge of Tuancheng, a “city” (actually, an island built on a raised circular wall) in Beihai, the parklike portion of the Forbidden City that lies to the northwest of the palace (see figure 8). The truth of the matter was that this amounted to house arrest. The Recollections of Old Eunuchs reports that Wei Zhu was bored in his gilded prison. He took to producing beautiful objects—mostly notably, musical instruments—out of calabash gourds grown inside of molds that he had intricately carved.61 By the early twentieth century many of these objects had reportedly ended up in the possession of the Dowager Empress Cixi.62 How much credence can we give to this story? It is drawn from palace lore, and perhaps became exaggerated as it was passed by generation after generation of eunuchs. It is not entirely without basis, however. We do know that Wei Zhu spent some period of time confined in Beihai; however, it was not his first residence following the death of Kangxi. Wei Zhu first went to live at his deceased master’s tomb. This fits a relatively common pattern: one retirement position for a eunuch was service at the imperial tombs—perhaps at the tomb of the emperor he served, or at those of previous emperors.63 It was often considered a desirable posting, because it provided a measure of independence. Communities of eunuchs and their servants and other household members developed around the tombs. For a new emperor, sending the faithful servants of his deceased father to the imperial tombs was also a way to keep them from further activity at court. Yet these were also postings in which eunuchs, far from the capital, could get into trouble by amassing power and influence. Wei Zhu, too, got into trouble at the imperial tombs. Sometime after his master’s death, Wei began the process of purchasing and renovating a house. During

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figure 8. Wei Zhu’s gilded prison, Tuancheng.

the early months of the first year of the Yongzheng reign, an official who was surveying the area observed that Wei Zhu had altered important elements of the imperial tomb’s feng shui—a serious offense—by leveling part of a hill to expand his household land, and blocking, with a new wall, an old stone bridge that gave access to his property. When the official questioned Wei Zhu about it, the eunuch professed ignorance. In the second month of the Yongzheng reign, he said in his defense, he had dispatched two of his household members, Doubar and Wang Fu, to purchase the house and conduct the renovations. He was so busy serving at the emperor’s tomb, he claimed, that it was only when he emerged on May 20, 1723, that he realized the changes had been made—and then he assumed that the enclosed area was not part of a forbidden piece of land.64 Fan Shiyi, a Chinese bannerman who was also stationed at the tomb, was then consulted. Fan claimed he saw no changes to the land when he inspected the area on May 18, and observed no changes until June 3. This proved that the changes were not made while Wei Zhu was serving Kangxi at his tomb, but were done after the eunuch had left the tomb. Wei Zhu had been caught in a lie. The president of the Board of Punishments, Foge, recommended further interrogations of Wei Zhu and his neighbors, and the seizure of Wei’s house and property (as well as those of

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his brother, who was also a eunuch). A week later, Wei Zhu changed his story. He admitted he knew about the changes to the hill and wall, but claimed to have assumed that, since these were ordinary people’s homes, altering them could not have an effect on feng shui. Only because of the investigation did he learn he had done something wrong. For that, he admitted, he deserved to die.65 Foge agreed with Wei Zhu on this last point. Wei’s crimes had initially been bad enough. He had disturbed the sanctity of a tomb by changing its structure, a crime that called for punishment of one hundred blows and banishment to a military outpost. Yet Wei’s crimes were too egregious for the standard sentence. He had betrayed the favor of not one but two emperors, Kangxi and Yongzheng, and deserved punishment under the statute governing acts of great disrespect. Accordingly, he should be beheaded, his possessions confiscated, and his family taken into custody. Foge concluded that he could not order the punishment on his own authority, and awaited word from the emperor. Probably not long after, Yongzheng heard from Fan Shiyi, who was very troubled at the prospect that he himself might have done something wrong, but whose account filled out the picture of Wei Zhu. Fan carefully enumerated not only the debt that he himself felt toward Yongzheng, but also the benefits that had been showered on his family since the start of the dynasty, when his grandfather the great hero Fan Chengmo had served.66 Fan Shiyi reported many disturbing interactions with the eunuch over the previous months that had demonstrated his extreme arrogance. Wei had come to him to ask that a friend of his, the local veterinarian, be put on the government payroll and receive grain allotments. When the eunuch made his requests, Fan said, his tone was extremely brazen. Furthermore, Fan wrote, he had gathered a cabal around him at the tombs that included a Manchu military official among its members. Yongzheng rescripted Fan’s memorial in detail. He added an interlinear comment at the mention of the cabal, wanting to know exactly who had been involved. In a rescript added at the end, he reassured Fan Shiyi, and he made clear his feelings toward Wei Zhu: You are really trustworthy, and I don’t suspect you in the slightest. If you have something to say, by all means memorialize it boldly. Wei Zhu is a mad dog. He seems to be an arrogant and willful man. How can he so naturally have gotten his prior position [i.e., working as senior eunuch to Kangxi], when he . . . should have received heaven’s punishment? But when I heard that Wei Zhu had built a house on land that common people farmed, I punished him promptly, thinking that people would discuss the fact that I had searched for a way not to forgive him. What’s more, this man was utterly not content to live a prosperous and peaceful life, so I have no choice but to take each of his unlawful deeds and make a mental note of them. Later when I come to the tombs to complete the funeral rituals [for Kangxi], I will secretly put forth an edict. Be certain to keep this secret.67

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Meanwhile, as Yongzheng was apparently mulling over what to do about Wei Zhu, more evidence emerged that the eunuch was up to no good. A few days earlier, Fan Shiyi had reported egregious eunuch behavior around the tombs, involving members of Wei Zhu’s household, to Foge, who in turn memorialized the throne. When Fan Shiyi’s subordinates (among them a man named Sun Qi) were patrolling around the imperial tombs, they saw two thieves cutting grass (for animal feed) from the hills of the tombs—a forbidden area. They captured one of the men and interrogated him, learning that he was a member of the household of a eunuch named Li Feng. The other perpetrator evaded capture, but he was said to be a member of the household of Li Guangfu. Another perpetrator was then spotted, who was a member of the household of eunuch Li Gong. Meanwhile, thirty to forty men who seemed to be involved in cutting grass emerged from a place called Donggou. Sun Qi and his men at first contemplated taking them into custody. Seeing the size of the mob, however, they turned to the idea of arresting only the leaders. The eunuch Li Gong, however, ordered the men to attack the soldiers, and a terrible melee ensued. Things got so confusing that Sun and his men could not identify individual assailants, and the injuries were severe. Two of Sun’s men were beaten into a stupor, and at the time of Sun’s memorializing they still could not move the lower portions of their bodies. He knew not whether they would live or die. Sun himself had been badly beaten and tied up from his shoulders to his feet, sustaining serious injury to his right foot. The knife he carried at his side and the gown he was wearing were both stolen. As if all this were not distressing enough, the Red Rope Brigade, commanded by Zhang Guoyu, was also attacked. The assailants were seventy members of the household of another eunuch, surnamed Zhao. Zhang’s men were badly beaten, their cold-weather caps, mattresses, and rucksacks stolen. Investigation would show that Wei Zhu’s men were among those involved in the first melee.68 Certainly Yongzheng had cause enough to be furious with Wei Zhu. This man had proven associations with his two despised brothers, Yūnsy and Yūntang. Rather than punishing Wei Zhu, however, he had permitted him to live a peaceful and prosperous life serving his deceased master. In return, Wei had callously ignored his duties and had enlarged his house and built a wall. He had also included among his followers a group of eunuchs who went around beating up government soldiers who tried to prevent them from illegally cutting grass from the tombs. Moreover, these eunuchs were clearly part of networks of eunuchs and others who stirred up trouble near the sacred imperial tombs. Yongzheng had yet more cause for anger, as Wei Zhu was associated with another case of greed. Soon after Kangxi’s death, Yongzheng ordered the cashiering of the governor of Jiangxi, Wu Cunli. Wu was accused of corruption, and had amassed a tremendous fortune—more than 4.1 million taels—much of which had come to him as gifts presented in the course of doing business. Wu himself had

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paid out tremendous amounts of money in gifts as well. The scholar Kōsaka Masanori has argued persuasively that this form of gift giving was essentially standard practice for the time. Yet Wu was prosecuted, and ultimately punished, for purely political reasons—specifically, because of the factionalism involved in Yongzheng’s succession to the throne.69 That this case was largely motivated by political factors is clear enough from the list of chief wrongdoers. It included Yongzheng’s most disliked brothers and officials. Also prominently mentioned was Wei Zhu, along with eunuchs in the household of his fifteenth brother.70 The naming of Wei Zhu as an offender in this case clearly identifies him as one of Yongzheng’s political opponents. Yet, despite all of these betrayals, Yongzheng resolved to treat Wei Zhu leniently. As he would describe his ambivalent sentiment: “Wei Zhu’s guilt is extremely great, and even the lingering death is not enough to cover his guilt. But I cannot bear to add Zhu’s name to the list of offenders. Xiao Yongzao should hand him over to the head of military, who will guard him closely, and not let him meet with anyone. I will have another occasion to deal with this offender.” 71 Wei Zhu would be put under house arrest in Tuancheng, where he would remain for the rest of Yongzheng’s reign. As mentioned at the start of this chapter, historians have debated whether or not Yongzheng came legitimately to the throne. Given this larger context, it is worth a moment of speculation about why Yongzheng chose to treat Wei, despite his manifestly egregious behavior, with a shocking degree of leniency. The emperor seemed intent not on punishment, but—as suggested by his order that Wei be taken into custody and not allowed to speak with anyone—only on getting Wei Zhu away from people and silencing him. What, precisely, was Yongzheng afraid that Wei Zhu would reveal? While it’s possible that Yongzheng was acting sheerly out of respect for his father’s most important eunuch, it’s also possible that Yongzheng owed this man something—that the eunuch had done him a favor so important that Yongzheng could not completely turn his back on him. While it is highly unlikely that Wei Zhu changed Kangxi’s will to give the throne to Yongzheng, it is possible, and even likely, that Wei Zhu influenced Kangxi’s opinion on who should succeed him. Kangxi and Wei Zhu had known one another for decades—very likely since boyhood. Wei Zhu had even been known as a haha juse taigiyan, or childhood eunuch companion of the emperor. As discussed in the previous chapter, Kangxi deeply respected Wei Zhu, and that respect only grew over the course of Kangxi’s life, until by the end of his reign Wei was likely his closest confidant, most certainly on family matters. Wei Zhu’s role as a gatekeeper, even between the emperor and his own sons, as Kangxi’s mind was fading; the eunuch’s famed persuasive powers; and Prince Yūntang’s stunning display of gratitude (including the offer of his son for adoption) all support the idea that Wei Zhu helped Kangxi choose his successor. To this strong circumstantial evidence we can

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add the sheer brazenness of Wei Zhu, which indicated he had little to fear from Yongzheng. Another explanation for Yongzheng’s lenient treatment of Wei Zhu may have been the emperor’s concern for palace opinion, which is so frequently mentioned in the documents. This was reflected in the emperor’s accusation, described above, that his brother Yūntang sought to impress the court eunuchs with his choice of a Han household manager, and his worry about eunuchs spreading rumors about him both in and out of the palace. By keeping Wei Zhu under house arrest, Yongzheng may simply have been trying to prevent him from spreading rumors— not necessarily rumors about the succession, but rumors about the emperor in general. He may also have chosen to spare Wei’s life, if not directly out of respect for his father’s longtime faithful servant, at least to avoid the appearance of, and public criticism for, treating him so harshly. T H E SE I Z U R E O F W E I Z H U ’ S A S SE T S

No preference for leniency on Yongzheng’s part would keep him from ordering the seizure of Wei Zhu’s assets, which was done by September 30, 1723. Those assets were then passed to Brigade Commander Guntai and to the minister of the Imperial Household Department, Li Yanxi, who carefully recorded them.72 The report on the eunuch’s assets, together with those of his household manager, Zhang Chengquan, were reported to the emperor on November 8, 1723. Doubtless Wei and Zhang had secreted funds into the hands of others. Guntai, however, was able to uncover real property in the city as well as at Rehe; two pawn shops; capital in the amount of more than thirteen thousand taels; gold hairpins, cups, and other articles together weighing over sixty-six liang; silver hairpins and other silver utensils weighing over 670 ounces; and thirty-two hundred pearls collectively weighing over ten liang. There were minks and precious furs by the hundreds, silks and hats of all descriptions, and six hundred pairs of boots. There were over six hundred precious stones, porcelains, and scrolls. There was also a library of 278 volumes. Among the serving pieces were bowls of precious rosewood and nanmu. There were also 486 articles of lacquerware furniture. Zhang Chengquan himself, however, was nowhere to be found.73 There was also an entirely separate residence of ninety-five jian located adjacent to Dinghui Si, the formerly dilapidated temple that Wei and his grandfather had come upon while walking through the city so many years before. It was loaded with 160 articles of furniture. Guntai also set about trying to locate Zhang Chengquan. When Wei’s assets were confiscated, Guntai interrogated Zhang’s wife, who claimed that he had gone to meet Wei Zhu at the tombs so that they could celebrate the eunuch’s birthday. Pressure on other members of Zhang’s family—including a nephew, and a brother in Tianjin who was thought to be hiding suitcases of valuables on Zhang’s behalf—

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did not turn up Zhang, but it did produce some other interesting results, including a third brother in the family—a high-level eunuch serving in the Antiques Office within the inner palace under an assumed name (Wang Deyong). It was this last point that irked and mystified Yongzheng, who ordered that Wang be arrested and interrogated, not only to learn the whereabouts of his elder brother but also to better understand how he came to work in the palace with a false identity; this is indeed a phenomenon with which we will be much more concerned in the following chapters.74 Though officials were never able to locate the fugitive Zhang Chengquan, posthumous records reveal a servant of considerable means: Zhang had loaned a friend almost nine thousand taels so that he could buy himself out of a contract of servitude, and also had bought the friend some land and a house (which Zhang later used as a hideout). After the friend died, a dispute over the loan led to a brutal beating, much bitterness, and Zhang’s eventual death.75 Zhang’s wealth, of course, was a fraction of the lucre owned by his master, Wei Zhu. It offers a glimpse, however, into the world of eunuchs in the Yongzheng period. Underneath the official world, in which eunuchs obtained positions through official channels, lay another world, one in which palace positions were gained through family connections—and in which those connections were sometimes concealed by name changes. Although the emperor was troubled by the discovery that Zhang Chengquan, servant to a famous eunuch, had a brother in a high position in the palace—and moreover, one who had changed his name to conceal that—his attention was overtaken by other pressing matters, and the issue went unpursued. C O N C LU SIO N : T H E M YST E R I E S O F L E N I E N C Y

If it is difficult to ascertain Yongzheng’s reasons for his lenient treatment of Wei Zhu, his indulgent treatment of other eunuchs from his brothers’ households is no less perplexing. Yūnsy’s eunuch Ma Qiyun received the harshest punishment, both for his role in the beating to death of Liang Yongrui and (even postburial) for spreading treasonous rumors. His accomplices in the beating episode, however, received the usual sentence for eunuchs involved in scandal: banishment to far-off places—no pleasure, to be sure, but not a death penalty, either. Yongzheng himself recognized his leniency and inconsistency in punishing just one or two eunuchs while letting the majority of offenders off easily. But he justified his behavior in the name of maintaining brotherly harmony. In order to punish eunuchs, he would have to expose their wrongdoing, and an airing of the facts of what had taken place would be embarrassing to his brothers. Of course, the advancing of unpersuasive arguments is an imperial prerogative. Yet emperors had no need for niceties when it came to making eunuchs disappear. Execution itself

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was not necessary: eunuchs who needed to be gotten rid of could be permanently locked up. In the fifth year of Yongzheng’s reign there were in fact a number of eunuchs permanently confined at Weng Shan for unspecified crimes.76 Labeled evil men whose actions had led to chaos, they were shackled or not, depending on the heinousness of their wrongdoing. A memorial recorded that there were seventeen men permanently imprisoned there. Of these, one was shackled with the notorious nine-tailed lock, one was shackled with the three-tailed lock, and three were shackled with the one-tailed lock. The locks were attached only loosely (why is not revealed in the documents), which meant the men had a tendency to remove them and run away—something that Yongzheng found inconceivable. Even in the case of these men, however, Yongzheng ordered leniency. They were to be monitored, and pardoned if they were found to have “conformed to the law and mended their ways.”77 Yongzheng’s true reasons for leniency with eunuchs may never be known, but at least some of it, as suggested above in the case of Wei Zhu, likely concerned eunuchs’ abilities to spread rumors across the city. This chapter began with the story of exiled eunuchs spreading damaging rumors about the new emperor as they traveled to their far-flung destinations. Had they been executed, however, those left behind might surely have spread rumors, in turn, about the cruelty of the new emperor. As the master of the house, Yongzheng would have been wise to avoid having a corps of servants who despised him. In the next chapter, we turn to an exploration of the policies the Yongzheng emperor instituted for the management of his eunuchs. Some of these changes reflected the impact of the succession scandal, whereas others match what we know about the Yongzheng emperor generally: that he was a ruler committed to greater bureaucratic efficiency.

6

Yongzheng’s Innovative Rules for Regulating Eunuchs

T H E Q U I E T L E G AC Y O F T H E SU C C E S SIO N C R I SI S

Yongzheng’s rulership has been more studied than that of any other emperor in Chinese history. Insightful studies of his thirteen-year reign provide a clear sense of his innovative leadership style. At times it can seem almost modern in its rationality: he fully reformed the taxation system, and streamlined the process of imperial communications so that it was a stark improvement over its Ming predecessor.1 These are indications of a willingness to break with tradition and to create new systems to solve complex problems. At other times, the studies show a different Yongzheng—a ruler who was far less rational, at least in the modern sense. In addition to his belief in omens, he adhered to Chinese astrology and was eager to know prospective appointees’ precise times of birth so he could anticipate their fate.2 He was, likewise, a devotee of the Chinese pseudoscience of physiognomy.3 We also see Yongzheng as a man whose vindictive qualities could get the better of him. He worked hard and brooded often; he also seemed to have little interest in the joys that lay at his disposal as emperor. There were certainly times when he seemed just a touch paranoid; his passion to reform the system of palace communications, carefully studied by Beatrice S. Bartlett, reveals an extraordinary preoccupation with secrecy.4 We see many of these qualities at work in the changes Yongzheng made to eunuch governance. The heart of his new system was the creation of a highly rational and extremely untraditional incentive structure. He instituted a ranking system for eunuchs that mirrored the official system, so they would strive for promotion. He also treated them compassionately, raising their salaries, giving them bonuses, and donating land to create a cemetery for them. 125

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Yongzheng’s management style also reveals the legacy of his troubled succession. He worried about eunuchs again becoming intimate with princes, and designed policies to keep them apart. He created new rules to control eunuchs who had been discharged from service, since his brothers’ eunuchs had stirred up trouble when they left the palace. We also see him instituting rules that enforced secrecy, to keep eunuchs away from the confidences of the palace and of government. Yongzheng’s decrees frequently demonstrate a real concern for eunuchs as rumormongers, and even hint at the notion of a eunuch public opinion, within the palace and without, that needed to be assuaged. Before we analyze these factors further, it is worth reflecting on the fact that not all the rules Yongzheng devised could be openly presented in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, the Qianlong-era imperially sponsored record of the dynasty’s supposed unswerving vigilance against a recurrence of eunuch power. Yongzheng’s innovative rules for palace governance contradicted received wisdom, much of it represented in the writings of Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, and Wang Fuzhi discussed in chapter 1. The clearest example is his institution of a ranking system: though it was intended to incentivize eunuchs, the effect would be to would make eunuchs resemble outer-court officials, which was considered dangerous. Yongzheng knew this, and to forestall criticism, he decided to limit his eunuchs to the fourth rank: they would strive for advancement within ranks nine to four. Still, when the system was made known, and especially when it was presented in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, only the limitation of ranks was mentioned. The work quoted Qianlong himself, praising his father’s rule on ranks while giving only the slightest nod to his father’s skills at organizational innovation: “My deceased father and the officials around him paid great attention to matters of organization, and in order to keep eunuchs from fault and from overstepping their bounds, ordained that they could not rise above the fourth rank.”5 Yongzheng was thus presented as a ruler who adhered to the gold standard for eunuch management, not as one who designed a ranks-based system to incentivize eunuchs to work harder. In the same way, while Qianlong’s palace history described some elements of his father’s generosity toward eunuchs, it made no mention of the cemetery Yongzheng created for them. A good ruler should not be too generous to his eunuchs, because that would suggest that he was not strict enough in their management. Neither could the problems of the succession be openly discussed. Yongzheng had already written that he had let eunuchs off easily precisely because he did not want to air the dirty laundry of the imperial family. He had even gone so far as to write that none of it should be recorded in the archives. Not surprisingly, the account of Yongzheng’s palace in the Qianlong-era history does not recount the problems eunuchs had caused Yongzheng and Kangxi in the succession. The closest the text came was in its discussion of the required separation of yin and yang.

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In framing an argument around the separation of yin and yang, Yongzheng was following the gold standard for analyzing eunuchs. By choosing to include the following edict in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, the editors placed Yongzheng squarely in that tradition: An edict to the Board of Punishments: In former times those who corrupted inner and outer in order to curry favor for personal gain [zuanying] have brought disorder to our rules and discipline; this I know all too well. It is for that reason that, since becoming emperor, I have had to periodically lecture the eunuchs on the inside and the officials on the outside about this, so that in all matters there is neither cheating nor deception. Where there has been currying favor, it may never be forgiven. If they are caught, they must be harshly disciplined according to the law. Time and again edicts have been clear on this.6

Eunuchs, as essentially inner beings, were innate flatterers (as Wang Fuzhi had discussed, quoting none other than Mencius himself). For this reason, eunuch involvement in government was dangerous. In the next section of the edict, Yongzheng described the specific circumstance that had led him to discuss this issue. It seems there was a eunuch who worked in the palace cleaning service named Fu Guoxiang who—in asking after the plans for an official who had been cashiered and returned home—was alleged to be fishing for some personnel information. The chief eunuch who received this report had failed to inform the emperor. Yongzheng ordered an investigation and punishment for wrongdoers.7 This incident reenacts an oft-quoted episode in the reign of Hongwu, the first Ming emperor. When Hongwu heard an elderly eunuch casually mention something about politics, he summarily discharged him and sent him home to his village. In this case, the depiction of Yongzheng’s equally punctilious attention to some fairly innocent questions by a eunuch was meant to demonstrate that he was a cautious emperor in the mold of Hongwu, ever vigilant against eunuch encroachment into government—not an innovator, but a traditionalist. Other edicts reprinted in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces likewise framed Yongzheng as a tough traditionalist. In the very first year of his reign, he noted with irritation that newly admitted eunuchs seemed to have no sense of respect. Throughout the Qing dynasty, newly admitted eunuchs were often first assigned to serve in the Palace Cleaning Office. Given Beijing’s fierce dust, the palace needed dusting on a daily, or perhaps twice-daily, basis; recruits proved their mettle by performing well in this office. Yongzheng had seen some of these eunuchs at work, and observed that they knew nothing about the attitude of respect they should have when carrying out their jobs. When sweeping in front of the throne, for example, they simply grabbed their brooms and swept, standing fully upright and showing not the least sense of reverence. Henceforth, he said, when any eunuch

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worked in a room containing a throne, he was to work with a sense of decorum.8 In other, similarly toned edicts, he criticized poor eunuch posture and occasional unruliness.9 SHA D OWS O F T H E P R I N C E S’ E U N U C H S

Many if not most of the problems in the late Kangxi reign emanated from the succession crisis. This was, in part, because of Yūnceng’s faults, but also because once the heir apparent was publicly named, he became a target of his ambitious brothers. Famously, Yongzheng changed this way of doing things, and began the practice of recording the heir apparent’s name and placing it in a sealed box above and behind the throne in the Yangxin Dian, or Hall of Mental Cultivation. Only at the emperor’s death would the box be opened and the new emperor announced.10 As Tang Yinian has noted, this change had a profound impact on eunuch life in the palace, because it put an end to their jockeying among themselves to become servants to the heir apparent. They could speculate about who the next emperor might be, but they could not know for certain.11 Yongzheng also set down rules regulating the eunuchs who surrounded the princes, with the intention of staving off bad influences on his sons. He began with the issue of selection. In 1727, in words resembling those of his own father, he warned the chief eunuchs about the types of eunuchs who should not be chosen to serve his sons. “You are not,” he wrote, “to select quick-witted eunuchs, lest they lure the princes into involvement in outer affairs. It is far better to select dim-witted but honest ones that the princes can control.”12 Once his sons reached the age of majority, Yongzheng went further and enforced a strict separation between them and the eunuchs who served elsewhere in the palace. The princes were to have their own carefully chosen eunuch staffs that were kept apart from the rest of the eunuch hierarchy. These rules were spelled out in 1730. Again in an edict to his chief eunuchs, he wrote that his sons had come of age but were still living in the palace. None of the palace eunuchs were to fawn on the princes, or in any way offend against them. Eunuchs should not come and go from the princes’ quarters; neither could they socialize with the princes’ eunuchs. They were not to drink with them, nor to play chess or dominoes with them. Nor should they engage in gossip. Yongzheng also specified four supervisory eunuchs by name; they alone were permitted to serve as liaisons between the princes and the larger eunuch staff.13 By keeping his sons isolated with dim-witted but honest eunuchs, Yongzheng sought to avoid problems like those of his father’s emperorship, though that awkward history remained unspoken. Beyond not replicating the problems he had faced with his own brothers, Yongzheng was worried about his sons, and one of them in particular. At the time of this edict he had just two living sons, aged nineteen and eighteen: Hongli, born

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in 1711, who would become the Qianlong emperor, and Hongjeo, born 1712; his other six sons had died. The surviving sons could not have been more different from one another. The future Qianlong took to every task his father gave him with alacrity, but his brother tired easily and never had much interest in government affairs. In the thirteenth year of Yongzheng’s reign, when the boys were in their early twenties, the emperor established an office to deal with the southwest (Yunnan–Guizhou) border, and put his two sons in charge. Hongli worked assiduously, but Hongjeo neglected his assignments. Nevertheless, Yongzheng indulged him. On one occasion, Hongjeo and Yongzheng were jointly proctoring an examination for the sons of bannermen. As dusk approached, Hongjeo suggested his father leave the examination room to eat and take a rest. Yongzheng refused. Hongjeo then said, sarcastically, “Does my father think I plan to bribe the students?” The next day, Hongjeo, realizing his mistake, appeared bareheaded before Yongzheng to apologize. Enraged, the emperor said that he could have spoken one word the day before, and his son’s bones would have been ground to powder.14 Nevertheless, Yongzheng continued to treat him indulgently, bestowing his own former residence and stipends on his son, making him extraordinarily wealthy. Hongjeo’s literary name was “Scholar of the Ancients” (Jigu), and true to that name, he left behind a volume of writings that largely contained his studies of classics and history.15 His essays in that work betray the impact of his princely education, and thus, not surprisingly, the subject of eunuchs comes up often. The essays in Hongjeo’s book that mention eunuchs reflect the standard warnings: eunuchs topple dynasties, and are not to be trusted.16 One essay, however, takes a far different approach, and betrays the feelings toward eunuchs that traditionalists would find dangerous. It also contains much more than the formulaic warnings that appear in the other essays. Hongjeo relates the story of a Tang-dynasty eunuch named Zhang Chengye, and grows emotional in the retelling. The essay begins conventionally. “From ancient times,” he asks rhetorically, how many of those who have caused the destruction of dynasties have been eunuchs? The Qin had fallen at the hands of Zhao Gao, the Western Han because of Shi Xian, and the Eastern Han because of Cao Jie, Zhang Rang, and others. The Tang dynasty of the Li family also declined at the hands of Qiu Shiliang and fell because of Liu Jishu. The eunuch excesses of the Song were slightly less, and yet in the time of the Huizong emperor, Tong Guan and Liang Shi cheng brought smaller calamities, many of which are not known.

The essay then switches tone as it tells the eunuch Zhang Chengye’s story. Zhang was a eunuch of the Tang dynasty who offered a heartfelt appeal to Li Cunxu, the Prince of Jin, to restore the Tang dynasty rather than name himself emperor of a new dynasty. Calling himself a simple old slave, eunuch Zhang begged the prince

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to think of the Tang and its founders, and to remain loyal to them. In a world where loyalty seemed to have been forgotten, Hongjeo opined, it was Zhang Chengye who deserved the title of loyal official.17 “Alas,” he concludes, “Chengye was nothing but a eunuch, but such was his loyalty to the Tang. Later generations read his words, in which he speaks of himself as a simple old servant, and they still shed tears.” That Hongjeo could express admiration for a eunuch like Zhang Chengye was one thing, but to shed tears for him was another. Yongzheng felt no need to anguish over his elder son, but he did so over Hongjeo, creating rules to keep him from growing too close to the eunuchs in his palace. Hongjeo never did live up to his father’s expectations. He developed a strange preoccupation with death rituals, saying that he failed to understand why they were a taboo subject. “No one can live for more than a hundred years,” he said, so “why should the subject be one that people avoid discussing?” He had expensive funerary vessels constructed, which he used in daily life, though knowledgeable people thought this would be unlucky. He carefully planned his own funeral, and would stage practice versions of it. He would insist on seeing his family members wail and offer sacrifices at these mock funerals, while he sat off to the side, solemnly eating and drinking. He died for real in 1770, at age fifty-eight.18 T R OU B L E S O N T H E OU T SI D E

In addition to eunuchs’ influence over princes, Yongzheng worried over a series of issues, each relating to eunuchs’ activities in the world outside the palace or their connections with that world. First, he worried that eunuchs sent out of the palace on assignment would act arrogantly toward ordinary people. Second, he was concerned that family members of eunuchs, living in the provinces, had used their palace connections to gain important positions in local government. Third, as mentioned above, he was concerned that eunuchs who had been dismissed from service were stirring up trouble on the outside, either in Beijing or in their home areas. At the base of Yongzheng’s concerns was his understanding that although eunuchs were lowly servants inside the palace, their positions carried considerable cachet in the outside world that they could use to cause trouble and break the law. Moreover, as we shall see, the shadow of the succession scandal hung over each of these related issues. Yongzheng announced these concerns less than a month after Kangxi’s death, when he promulgated an edict complaining about how arrogantly eunuchs behaved when leaving the palace on assignment. “Whenever you eunuchs travel outside the palace,” he wrote, “you never fail to be arrogant and pleased with yourselves.” By contrast, he offered, he himself had lived outside the palace for long periods of time, and though he was a prince of the first rank (qinwang), he never failed to be modest and amiable. He ordered them to mend their ways, and to be

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unassuming and good-humored in all matters.19 Not long afterward, Yongzheng issued an edict in which he complimented eunuchs on their exemplary demeanor in the two months following the Kangxi emperor’s death. They had followed the rules, and paid careful attention to their duties. However, he was once again seeing eunuchs walking chaotically and talking in loud voices. These actions harked back to the time when eunuchs frequently misbehaved (the last years of Kangxi). If they used loud voices in the palace, he worried, they were likely even more rambunctious while on the outside. This was a concern particularly because the Kangxi emperor’s coffin was about to be escorted to the tombs. He admonished them and their superiors to be on guard.20 Soon after ascending the throne, Yongzheng also turned his attention to the illegal activities of his eunuchs’ family members. In an edict sent to governors and governors-general in May 1723, he warned against the infiltration of eunuchs’ relatives into the local bureaucracy. “Among your subordinates,” he wrote, might be eunuchs’ brothers, sons, or nephews, who either directly requested your assistance, or who were recommended to you by members of princely households. These men are often hoodlums who are up to no good, or people who join cliques. When they take up office they shamelessly extort ordinary people. I know all this too well. You should carefully inquire into such cases, so that you can report wrongdoers and see to it that they are removed from their posts. If I find out you are concealing such cases I will punish you severely the moment I find out.

Perhaps the most telling moment in the edict is the reference to the princely households, which shows that Yongzheng was aware that there could be eunuchs working in the provincial governments who had been allies of his brothers’ eunuchs. Thus, there could be local officials in the bureaucracy who were not loyal to him.21 Yongzheng’s order for an investigation did turn up at least one relative of a eunuch who was serving in the provincial bureaucracy: the registrar of documents in Hangzhou, Wei Feng, who had been in office since 1722, was the brother of Li Qizong, a eunuch serving in the household of Yongzheng’s twelfth brother.22 Mamboo, the governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang, reported to Yongzheng that he had checked Wei Feng’s personnel files, and learned that he listed his residence as Kunshan, Zhejiang. Both of these details were highly suspicious. First, why didn’t the two brothers share the same surname? Second, why was their hometown listed as Kunshan rather than one of the counties to the south of Beijing from which eunuchs traditionally hailed? When Mamboo promised to investigate further and report, Yongzheng cautioned that he should operate carefully, and consider job performance. Good workers should not be removed from their posts, but those who stirred up trouble should be dismissed.23 While no further correspondence between Yongzheng and Mamboo on this subject survives, there is considerable

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additional evidence of Yongzheng’s disquiet about eunuchs’ relatives causing trouble. Yongzheng’s concern over eunuch relatives resurfaced several years later, in the fourth year of his reign (1726), when he became aware of problems with the imperial granaries around Beijing. Apparently these granaries were running deficits of grain, and were also in need of upkeep. It was nearly impossible, however, for the local granary officials to implement changes, because many of the local residents used court connections or other machinations to impede these local officials’ authority. The guilty parties included bannermen, crafty local officials who could pervert the law by playing with legal phraseology, and the relatives of eunuchs— specifically, their parents, brothers, and nephews.24 He appended another edict to the first, which set forth a specific method for dealing with the relatives. In the case of egregious wrongdoing, they were to be dealt with by the governor of the province. For smaller matters, they were to be reported to the Imperial Household Department, which, in turn, would inform the related eunuch, who was to encourage his family member to reform his or her ways. If this failed, the Imperial Household Department could take action.25 On the heels of the problems with the national granaries, Yongzheng was feeling pressure to reassert central government control over Zhili, the province that surrounded the capital. Because officials in Zhili either were unwilling to stand up to influential families (which included the families of eunuchs) or were in cahoots with them, the Board of Personnel proposed, and Yongzheng approved, a plan that would use the censorial apparatus to uncover wrongdoing. Censors selected from among the ranks of Manchus, Han Chinese, and Han banners were sent in equal numbers to cover particular circuits through the province. The wrongdoers were to be handled locally, but in the event that local officials could not manage the situation themselves, the governor-general was to be informed.26 Yongzheng was equally concerned with the eunuchs outside the palace, particularly those who had been released from service but were not returning to live quiet lives in their villages; many such men seemed to be staying impermissibly in the capital. In the second year of his reign, Yongzheng set out the general rule that eunuchs who had been released from service in the palace or the princely households were required to return to their home areas. Among them were likely many mischief-makers, he said, and the chief eunuchs should ensure that they had returned to their hometowns and were not in fact staying in Beijing or other local areas. Yongzheng carved out an exception for eunuchs who were over sixty-five years of age, and retired due to age or infirmity.27 Bootai, managing imperial household matters in the Board of Rites, reported on the system’s functioning on October 2, 1724.28 When eunuchs were discharged from service they received a ticket from the Board of Rites. Upon returning to their hometowns, they submitted the tickets to local officials, who gave them a

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receipt and then returned the original tickets, via provincial officials, to the Board of Rites. Bootai noted that from February 5, 1723, until July 18, 1724, 113 eunuchs had been released in this manner, but only twenty-five tickets were returned, meaning that 88 eunuchs were still at large. Local officials were polled, and none of the missing eunuchs had returned home; they were presumed to be staying in the capital, where they might be stirring up trouble. Bootai and his fellow officials outlined a plan for the capture and prosecution of these individuals by capital-area police. In his written response to Bootai, Yongzheng argued for a degree of leniency. Using interlinear comments and writing in Manchu, Yongzheng carefully modified the plan for these people. Rather than finding and prosecuting the missing eunuchs, police were to find them and urge them to return to their hometowns. Only those who stayed hidden in the city and refused to return should be handed over for prosecution. Those found to be engaged in illegal activities were to be punished according to the law.29 In 1726, Yongzheng again modified the system slightly for the benefit of eunuchs who wanted to stay in the capital. The Imperial Household Department was empowered to award certificates to eunuchs who had special permission to reside in Beijing. Those in Beijing without permission first received a warning; if they failed to heed it, they were to be severely punished. Members of the capital gendarmerie (bujun tongling), the police unit responsible for guarding Beijing, were to be the chief enforcers of this new provision.30 Yongzheng also ordered another policing group—one that will become very important to our story, the Fanyi police division (“Inner Police Bureau”) of the Imperial Household Department—to aid in enforcement. Police from this group were to be dispatched to apprehend eunuchs living in Beijing illegally.31 The Fanyi Police had existed in Beijing for quite a long time, but it was under Yongzheng that they were made more official, and given resources and particular officers assigned to a place in its hierarchy. In its 1726 incarnation, there were to be forty officers, with four headmen (toumu) supervising them.32 T R OU B L E S O N T H E OU T SI D E : T H E L E G AC Y O F SU C C E S SIO N , H Ū N G ŠE N G’ S E U N U C H S , A N D T H E C A SE S O F Y I F E I A N D B O O TA I

Yongzheng was forced to once again crack down on the illegal-residency problem after he learned that five eunuchs released from his nephew Hūngšeng’s household were running a gambling hall in the city. In a new edict, Yongzheng took essentially the same position as in the above-mentioned cases, lamenting that among the released eunuchs remaining in Beijing were the best and worst of the city’s eunuchs. Some were aged men who had toiled for years and were sick; others were lazy or incorrigible men who had failed to know their place and had been sent out.

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Hūngšeng’s former eunuchs were clearly in the latter category, and deserved harsh punishment. What’s more, Yongzheng opined, there were certainly other households protecting eunuchs like this. They, too, must be punished, and careful investigation was needed to thwart such violations.33 The problem for the historian is that Yongzheng’s earlier pledge not to air the family’s dirty laundry might well have concealed his own and others’ underlying motives, as well as connections between eunuchs and his own family. Is it a coincidence, for example, that the troublesome eunuchs in this case had come from the household of Hūngšeng, the eldest son of Yūnki, who had also been a candidate for the throne? In the same year that Hūngšeng’s eunuchs were punished for running the gambling hall, Yongzheng revoked the inheritability of Hūngšeng’s title (shizi), which had been awarded to him in the last days of Kangxi.34 Yongzheng was very vague about his reasons for revoking it, saying merely that, despite warnings, Hūngšeng did not put effort into his work managing banner affairs.35 Perhaps more important, was it significant that Hūngšeng’s grandmother was also the mother of Yongzheng’s despised brother Yūntang? Hūngšeng’s grandmother was Yifei, the most beloved concubine of the Kangxi emperor. Yongzheng’s own mother, the empress Xiaogong, died just a year after Kangxi, and several sources report that from that time onward Yifei became arrogant. Yongzheng himself had to scold her for failing to take proper part in the rituals following his mother’s death, and for failing to act mournfully.36 According to one source, some officials had suggested that Yifei was using her chief eunuch, Zhang Qiyong, to conduct business for her outside the palace. He had a suspicious number of business ventures on the outside, and it was feared he was carrying them out as an agent for Yifei. This source refers to an edict in which the Yongzheng emperor considered but then dismissed the possibility. “Mother Yifei lives in the inner precincts of the palace; it would certainly not be possible for her to be buying property on the outside.” Yongzheng thus attributed the misdoings to Zhang Qiyong himself. In the same edict, he banished Zhang and eleven other eunuchs to distant places, though his order is unclear on whether the others were in conspiracy with Zhang. These eunuchs worked in the service of other princes and princesses.37 In sending these eunuchs to far-off places, Yongzheng was using the same strategy he had reserved for eunuchs associated with wrongdoing in his own family: he banished them, rather than looking more deeply into the matter, which would require an investigation that could make his family members look bad. For this reason, there are few details available about this tantalizing case of Yifei, and the connections among female members of the household associated with it. It is even harder to prove another possibility: that Yifei herself was, indeed, using her eunuchs to conduct business on the outside. In that case, the banishment of her eunuchs and the confiscation of their belongings would be intended to send her a strong message.

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Another mystery surrounds Bootai, Yongzheng’s agent on the Board of Rites who oversaw the return of eunuchs to their home areas. This man’s father was the Kangxi emperor’s brother Fuciowan. Kangxi trusted Bootai so much that he ordered Bootai to supervise the confinement of Yūnti—Kangxi’s own son and Bootai’s cousin.38 Kangxi also conferred on Bootai the right to inherit his father’s title, and awarded him a noble title. We know little about the circumstances under which his titles were removed, except that it occurred soon after he memorialized Yongzheng about the problem of eunuchs remaining in the capital rather than returning to their villages. At least one source reports that Bootai was found to be colluding with Yongzheng’s hated brother Yūnsy.39 Facts like this, existing only in isolation, suggest the deep impact of the succession crisis and eunuchs’ roles in it.

P U B L IC O P I N IO N I N T H E PA L AC E A N D T H E N E E D F O R SE C R E C Y

Again and again we are struck by Yongzheng’s lenient treatment of eunuchs, as recounted in this and the previous chapter. In chapter 5, the logic of his ostensible defenses of this leniency—the need to maintain family secrets, and brotherly affection—were found wanting. The more plausible explanation, discussed at the end of that chapter, is that Yongzheng worried about the collective opinion of the palace eunuchs—men who were proven rumormongers, and well connected both inside and outside the city. Yūntang knew they were part of these networks, and exploited their connections to his advantage. The eunuch Wei Zhu, too, was well connected in the city, with friends among Manchus and Han elites.40 To kill or harshly punish Wei Zhu, then, would be to incite the ire of those who were in his network. Yongzheng’s own slight case of paranoia probably fueled his anxiety about palace opinion. In a strangely revelatory edict to the chief eunuchs, he made a point of complaining that eunuchs were often heard laughing and joking among themselves, but immediately became quiet when he entered the room, as if they were talking about him, or as if they felt it their duty to appear quiet and somber in his presence. Lately you eunuchs gather privately, and it never happens that you don’t laugh happily. But when you see me you become reticent as if you are experiencing bitterness, and are completely without an amiable disposition. If you consider this being deferential, then you could not be more mistaken. You should strictly pass this on, so that in the future if this behavior does not change, then a few people will be punished to show everyone that they must change.41

Perhaps this edict speaks to Yongzheng’s feeling of being left out of his servants’ small talk, and hints at the loneliness that went with being emperor. Just as likely,

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the edict hints at his fear that eunuchs were talking about him behind his back, curtailing their chatter as soon as he entered the room. He would also chide eunuchs for murmuring among themselves, as if they were talking behind his back.42 On another occasion, this anxiety caused Yongzheng to lash out at a eunuch, punishing him harshly for an innocent mistake. On June 10, 1729, he casually asked one of his eunuchs, Wang Qing, whether the plum flowers had bloomed at the Changchun Yuan garden palace in northwest Beijing. The question caught Wang off guard, and he answered without thinking that they were indeed blooming. When the emperor found out the eunuch didn’t know what he was talking about, and that the flowers had not yet bloomed, he became enraged and ordered a harsh punishment for him—forty days in the cangue followed by one hundred blows of the bamboo.43 This episode, never promulgated in an edict or reprinted in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, stands as stark proof of Yongzheng’s willingness to treat his eunuchs harshly if they were caught lying to him. Truth from those around him meant everything, especially given his experience in the succession. His brothers’ mendacious eunuchs had been the cause of his and his father’s troubles, and he would not abide it. He wanted honesty from his eunuchs, but because he could never fully trust them, or anyone, he was also obsessed with secrecy. His father was different, and had trusted eunuchs in his service; Yongzheng saw the price he paid. Wei Zhu had been Kangxi’s trusted childhood friend, and had betrayed his master. Li Yu and Liang Jiugong had also been trusted eunuchs, yet had also betrayed Kangxi. Seeing what trusted eunuchs did to his father must have affected Yongzheng’s palace management style. He was careful to state, in implicit contrast to his father, that he consistently kept eunuchs at a distance: “As for the eunuchs in my palace, I do no more than send them as messengers. I don’t have eunuchs who are childhood friends. I indeed don’t have around me anyone I rely on.”44 Reflecting on the Kangxi period, Yongzheng noted that his father would sometimes have secret conversations with two officials at once. If he learned that a secret had been divulged, he would confront the two officials, who would blame one another. If his father had a secret conversation with just one official while a eunuch was present, and the conversation was divulged, then that official would blame the eunuch. To Yongzheng there seemed to be a self-evident solution to this problem: secrets should be shared with no more than one official at a time, and eunuchs should not be present when secrets were discussed.45 HELP FOR GOOD EUNUCHS

Financial Aid for Retired Eunuchs Though the incidents described above are remarkable, Yongzheng was more than a distrustful emperor preoccupied with secrecy. In many of his edicts criticizing

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evil eunuchs for their wrongdoing, he was also quick to point to the existence of hardworking eunuchs who deserved his support and compassion. His first edict offering sustenance to discharged eunuchs was promulgated in 1726, around the same time that he was worrying about the problems caused by corrupt discharged eunuchs. I was reading through the chief eunuchs’ list of disabled and chronically sick eunuchs who were released from service. . . . Among them was a boy eunuch named Duan Cheng who was only nine sui, whose situation was quite pitiful. There were also some aged eunuchs who had worked for twenty to thirty years, and had become worn-out. Although they are old and sick, they have been ordered out, and this is something that I cannot endure. Even . . . dogs and horses must be taken care of. How much more so in the case of one’s household servants?

Yongzheng went on to implement a plan of action for such eunuchs that is marked by an extraordinary degree of leniency, even kindness: You all should impartially use your discretion, while in each case also following the eunuch’s wishes. For those men who wish to return to their village, I will grant them that favor. For those who wish to live in Beijing, then let them do so. Moreover, you chief eunuchs should be aware of which of your eunuchs have family property and so can survive, and which do not have family property and so cannot survive. [For] those who have family property, pay attention to their wishes. [For] those who do not have family property and so cannot survive, use money from the Chiming Clock Bureau or money from the Jingshi Fang, to give each man one tael per month, so they can support themselves.46 Also, let the chief minister of the Imperial Household Department’s inspection office [chaguan fang], locate official buildings with more than one hundred rooms, then divide them up for these men’s use, with each man receiving one or two rooms in which to live. Let the two remaining rooms be used by two supervisory eunuchs who will oversee them. And let any rental receipts be used to provide for their life in retirement. . . . In the future when there are eunuchs returned to commoner status, you should set their names out clearly in a memorial.47

This edict demonstrates Yongzheng’s implicit understanding of the fact that the eunuchs in his service received varying degrees of support from their families. Some were welcome in their homes after retirement and were recipients of family property; others were either unwelcome or so poor that their families had no money to give them. Some who were close to their families would have to give them funds for support. Of course, some eunuchs had families of their own, with biological descendants or otherwise, whom they needed to help support. Yongzheng’s instruction to his chief eunuchs made them responsible for knowing the financial status of the eunuchs in their charge, and adjusting their treatment accordingly. To provide an additional cushion for his eunuchs, the emperor established a fund from which they could borrow for personal needs, and endowed it with

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twenty thousand taels. His edict to the chief eunuchs on the subject reveals both an overt empathy for his servants, and a desire to develop the details to make the system work effectively: With regard to the imperial household officials, I have already given them bestowals of cash. And although I have given cash gifts to eunuchs in the past, I am afraid these have been insufficient. So now I specially give you a gift of twenty thousand taels, so that you will forever be able to flourish. I understand that eunuchs have brothers, sons, and nephews whom they must support. Each tael will be lent out at one fen interest, and those who receive loans will not be permitted to reloan it. If one of the eunuchs can’t repay the loan, then the other eunuchs will be charged. Eunuchs will not want other eunuchs to hate them, and so will repay the loan. This sum of twenty thousand taels will thus be stockpiled for a long time. The excess money that accrues can be doled out for weddings and funerals [hong bai shi] and when eunuchs must travel outside.48

Establishing a Cemetery for Eunuchs Yongzheng was concerned not only with his eunuchs’ needs for rainy-day and retirement funds, but also with their final resting places. Even in the counties that produced eunuchs, these men were often not accepted home for burial, just as clans almost always failed to include them in family genealogies.49 So it was that, in the last years of his reign, Yongzheng established a cemetery for eunuchs in the Haidian area of Beijing, outside the Fucheng Gate. He donated 460 mu of land, which included not only an area for burial of eunuchs, but also land for a temple, and lands to be rented in support of the temple.50 Work began on the project in August 1734 and was completed in August 1738. The place would be named Enji Zhuang, or Village of Imperial Kindness and Assistance.51 On the stele set up to praise Yongzheng for establishing the cemetery and to Qianlong for seeing it through to completion, Haiwang, the high official who was, among other positions, chief minister of the imperial household, praised these emperors for “[b]eneficence that extended beyond all borders and touched all things.” The stele also credits these rulers for understanding that it was people’s nature to want sons and grandsons to carry on their line, and so this act of imperial generosity was meant to bring some measure of peace and happiness to these men who might otherwise have regrets.52 While certainly an act of great generosity on Yongzheng’s part, there are two things worth noting about Enji Zhuang. First, one can too easily get the impression that before its establishment, eunuchs who could not be buried in their home villages were left without a grave. This was not the case. In the northwestern suburbs there were other eunuch cemeteries that predated Enji Zhuang.53 Indeed, it is likely that Yongzheng chose this location because it already contained some eunuch burial grounds in the vicinity and was near other established eunuch bur-

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ial spots.54 Second, burial in Enji Zhuang was not available to all eunuchs. The total number of eunuchs buried there was estimated to be less than three thousand, and from surviving records we know that, with some exceptions, these were generally high-ranking eunuchs, men who had achieved the office of chief or supervisory eunuch.55 Establishing this new cemetery was also a way to reward high-achieving eunuchs and incentivize others. The stones there were not merely memorials to deceased eunuchs; the texts on them were testaments to the benefits of hard work and self-discipline. Establishing it was thus an act of generosity combined with a strategic effort to motivate eunuchs to work hard and stay out of trouble. Texts on the eunuchs’ tombstones extolled their lives of hard work. There was Sun Jinchao, who had been prudent, honest, respectful, hardworking, easygoing, and straightforward. He was not afraid to give advice, but never in a scolding manner, to his subordinate eunuchs when they made mistakes. He always took on his fair share of work, and was energetic into his midsixties, ever willing to adapt and face life’s problems with a big heart.56 Then there was Wang Jinyu, a native of Qing County. Naturally intelligent as a youth, he won the favor of Kangxi, who gave him the task of transmitting orders, which he did for dozens of years without mistakes. When Yongzheng ascended the throne, he made Wang the chief eunuch of the Yangxin Dian and gave him the title Wenlinlang. Later, because of his prudence, he was appointed chief eunuch of the Yuanming Yuan (Old Summer Palace) and given the honorific title of Chengdelang. His careful and intelligent service to two emperors earned him special favors, and he died in 1738 at home.57 Salaries and Ranks as Inducements Yongzheng’s acts of generosity toward his eunuchs were one part of what became, under his rule, a larger program of providing better working conditions for them. As in the case of Enji Zhuang, however, this general concern for improvement was often tied to finding ways to incentivize eunuchs to work harder.58 These twinned objectives became the hallmark of his changes to eunuch management. Yongzheng therefore focused not just on improving eunuch salaries generally, but also on using salary to reward his most hardworking eunuchs. His plan was manifest in an edict of February 18, 1724. Eunuchs who had served for years in the palace and who had been diligent, cautious, and effective at their work were to be singled out for rewards of additional payments, more than doubling their salaries. These eunuchs could receive an additional two and a half or three taels per month, depending on rank and performance.59 Ten days later, he fine-tuned the provision, ordering that each eunuch office within the palace should determine the numbers of eunuchs whose salaries should be supplemented. Those who were leaving office because of problematic performance were not entitled to take their supplements with them. Yongzheng made these regular annual supplements.60 Supplements

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were awarded at the end of each year, and were allocated by rank and office. The supervisory eunuchs in the imperial tea service, for example, were collectively given 177 liang, and those in the imperial wardrobe and wardrobe vault service were collectively given 151 liang. On the other hand, eunuchs in less important offices received smaller subsidies. The supervisory eunuchs of the cleaning office, for example, collectively received only 41 liang.61 While it is difficult to know how these subsidies affected eunuchs overall, I believe Jonathan Spence is correct in asserting that the Yongzheng emperor effectively doubled eunuchs’ wages, which left many earning in the range of four to six taels per month.62 Yongzheng also imposed a carefully devised series of ranks, so that eunuchs would strive for promotions. As noted earlier, the issue of awarding ranks to eunuchs was somewhat touchy because it appeared to make eunuchs analogous to government officials. Earlier in the Qing, as discussed in chapter 2, Shunzhi had been criticized for instituting the Thirteen Yamen, with a ranking system that all too closely resembled the Ming system. His response was to ensure that eunuchs would not rise above the fourth rank. Nevertheless, soon after his death, regents for the Kangxi emperor removed all eunuch ranks, the better to return eunuchs to their rightful places.63 Kangxi himself, in the sixteenth year of his reign, would relent slightly, awarding the eighth rank to some eunuchs.64 Realizing that the issue was sensitive, Yongzheng tentatively began instituting a system of eunuch ranks soon after he came to the throne. His reign began on December 27, 1722. On January 11, 1723, he awarded one of his chief eunuchs the fifth rank. He also awarded the fifth rank to three other eunuchs, though they were not chief eunuchs. He also awarded the sixth rank to two eunuchs.65 Toward the end of his first year on the throne, he went beyond these tentative first steps— which were actually special bestowals on particularly deserving individuals—and formalized a system of rankings that would apply to the eunuchs in the Jingshi Fang. Unlike the first steps, which limited eunuchs to the fifth rank, it would allow them to achieve the fourth rank. Promulgated on October 7, 1723, his edict stated that the chief eunuch of the Jingshi Fang would be fourth rank, and his assistant chief eunuchs, sixth rank. Their assistants, who would be supervisory eunuchs, would be seventh rank, and their respective assistants eighth rank.66 In the fourth year of his reign, Yongzheng elaborated the system to include more eunuchs, and to include “junior” and “senior” levels within each rank.67 These eunuchs were members of the Directorate of Palace Domestic Service, one of the largest and most important eunuch agencies in the palace system.68 The seniormost eunuchs in the agency would be fourth-rank senior, and those just below them, who were assistant chief eunuchs, would be fourth-rank junior. Promotions and demotions would be determined by court letter (laiwen) sent in by the head of the agency. The system for eunuchs thus closely resembled the system of official ranks, and differed only in that no eunuch could rise above the fourth

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rank.69 Eunuchs were incentivized to work hard, however, by the promise of promotion within ranks eight to four. For the remainder of his reign, Yongzheng would adhere to, and further adjust, his system of awarding ranks to eunuchs. And while he abandoned the use of junior and senior levels within each rank in 1730, he remained committed to using official rank as a motivational tool.70 In the eleventh year of his reign, for example, he awarded the eighth rank to all supervisory eunuchs in the three palace manufactories, where armaments, lacquerware, and fireworks were produced.71 Adjusting ranks, however, was not the only way he went about trying to motivate his eunuchs. In 1730, the same year in which he removed junior and senior rankings from eunuch titles, he wrote at length about how to use salary and special bestowals of cash as a way to motivate supervisory eunuchs. Quoted in its entirety, the edict shows again Yongzheng’s sympathy for hardworking eunuchs and his rational approach to palace management: Edict of May 27, 1730. In my deceased father’s days, when eunuchs traveled outside the palace, their work was distributed evenly. Recently, however, I have begun to pay close attention to this issue. I see that when the chief eunuchs and their attendant supervisory eunuchs serve together, the work is not evenly distributed, and not everyone is making an effort. Not only are the supervisory eunuchs unable to see which subordinates are not working hard; this group’s knowledge and experience is meager, and so when they give out salary and special awards, everyone ends up getting the same amount. In this situation, who would wish to continue to work with all one’s heart? So you chief eunuchs have no way of differentiating people as a way of providing encouragement. That situation results in your subordinate eunuchs gradually thinking of becoming crafty and lazy. Even if you concentrate on working your hardest, and the servants you send [on these missions outside] work flawlessly, those [sorts of eunuchs who] avoid the important and focus on the trivial will have no one to reprimand them, and so they will slowly get away with it. This was the case today with the eunuch Shen Ziming, who [is trained to] hold the umbrella. He seems to be a man who could be used, and yet he has not had a chance to work yet, and appears in the state of someone who is constantly anxious and distressed. Then there is the eunuch Li Wengui, who appears to be ignorant, and yet makes great effort. But it is clear that this group [of supervisory eunuchs] does have some knowledge, even if they take refuge in doing what is easy. From now on, you chief eunuchs should focus on drawing distinctions as a way of providing encouragement and as a way of restoring old habits. In distributing salary and special rewards to the supervisory eunuchs who work in the imperial wardrobe and such offices, carefully check to see whether they are diligent or lazy. If there are those who spare no effort, then give them the extra salary and rewards you would have given to the crafty and lazy supervisory eunuchs. If they mend their ways, then you can restore these rewards. If I have occasion to make special bestowals, then they will also be divided out in this way. The diligent and painstaking supervisory eunuchs

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When Qianlong looked back on Yongzheng’s eunuch management, he had relatively little to say. He simply praised his father’s limitations on eunuch ranks, because that fit within the pattern of emperors who strictly managed their eunuchs. This followed the precedent of Hongwu and others dating back to at least the Tang dynasty. Qianlong revealed little if any awareness that his father’s limitation of eunuchs to the fourth rank was not about his following a strict standard. Instead, it reflected his desire to use a ranks-based system to incentivize eunuchs to work harder. A SYS T E M W I T H P E R S O NA L C HA R AC T E R I S T IC S

This chapter has shown Yongzheng to be a ruler haunted by the demons of the succession crisis, who implemented rules to prevent the recurrence of problems of his father’s reign. We also see an emperor who was an innovator and organizer, rethinking the eunuch management of his palace and creating a new system to improve their working conditions and induce them to work harder. But while Yongzheng was a builder of systems who thought carefully about how to incentivize eunuchs, he seems to have devoted little attention to the creation or maintenance of eunuch records. Indeed, if there were eunuch personnel registries in the Yongzheng period, they have not come to light, nor have I seen them referred to in the archival record. This is amply illustrated by a case that occurred in 1734, in which a princely household eunuch was suspected of harboring a child and lending money under false pretenses. All that was known about the eunuch from confessions taken in the case was that he was surnamed Dou. There was no registry of eunuchs, and Yongzheng had to order an inquiry to see if there was a eunuch surnamed Dou in the princely household of his brother.73 The apparent lack of personnel records and procedures lent a personal quality to Yongzheng’s management of eunuchs. It is readily apparent from Yongzhengera documents, for example, that this emperor knew many of his eunuchs by name. This is evident in the edict quoted above, in which he spoke about the umbrella-holding eunuch Shen Ziming, who always looked anxious, and the eunuch Li Wengui, who appeared ignorant and yet worked steadily. It is also evident in his description, cited above, of the eunuch Li Guoyong, who had been toiling in his workshop for many years. Yongzheng’s personal knowledge of his eunuchs is also evident from his assignment of particular eunuchs to particular tasks.74 As noted above, he professed to keep eunuchs at a distance, and claimed to have no childhood friends who were eunuchs—but he knew them as individuals.

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This personal knowledge of eunuchs, and, just as important, a willingness to publicly admit to it, were qualities that Yongzheng shared with his father, Kangxi. Neither man seemed to think it beneath the dignity of the office to know his eunuchs by name, and to refer to them by name. We turn next to Qianlong, an emperor who had a much different attitude toward those in his household service and seldom admitted to knowing his eunuchs by name. He also put tremendous emphasis on the maintenance of eunuch personnel records, though the accuracy of those records is questionable. The following chapter addresses the particular changes that Qianlong himself made to the system of eunuch management, at least some of which were a reaction to his father’s innovations.

7

The Qianlong Emperor Shifting the Arc of History

In 1736, when the Qianlong emperor came to the throne, he had very definite ideas about eunuchs. His father, the Yongzheng emperor, had managed them in ways his son could not abide. Rather than a compassionate and carefully constructed incentive system, his father’s reforms, described in the previous chapter, were to Qianlong a dangerous departure from traditional wisdom. The new emperor would have to ensure that he returned the dynasty to a healthy course by preventing the scourge of eunuch power, returning it to the gold standard for eunuch management described in chapter 1. Doing so would require constant vigilance, since, he warned, when it came to eunuchs, the smallest spark could start a prairie fire, and the smallest trickle could become a mighty river.1 Yongzheng’s changes had allowed the arc of the Qing to drift slightly and yet significantly in the direction of eunuch power. Qianlong would have to shift it back. On the face of it, nudging the arc of Qing history by changing policy was not a difficult task for Qianlong. His greater challenge was changing policy without overtly criticizing his forefathers. Filial piety loomed large in the world of Qing emperors. Qianlong took the principle seriously, and he would, as Joanna WaleyCohen has noted, avoid even mentioning ways in which he had outshone his forebears.2 That same adherence to filial norms led Qianlong to whitewash his forefathers’ records as eunuch managers. This is where his History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces played a central role. As discussed in chapter 1, the work portrayed Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong as pursuing a unified strategy of eunuch management, one that conformed to traditional wisdom. This chapter details the Qianlong emperor’s implementation of a system of eunuch management that corresponded to those traditional ideals. He would 144

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maintain a bright line around areas that had caused problems in past dynasties stretching back almost two thousand years. Eunuchs would not be allowed to come within a hair’s breadth of governance or of the military, since these had been surefire causes of disaster. He also reversed his father’s strategy for managing them, in part because those changes could be equated with leniency, and in part because they made eunuchs more like government officials. The story is more complicated, however, and so the chapter’s subject reaches deeper. While Qianlong’s rhetoric about eunuchs was stern, and he was unyielding when it came to the bright-line areas of eunuch involvement in governance and the military, there were gray areas in which he claimed to adhere to a traditional norm of eunuch management but in fact tolerated a far more permissive reality. In so doing, he promoted certain myths about his standard of eunuch management, each of which is detailed in subsequent sections of this chapter. Each of these myths reflected traditional standards of eunuch management. By promoting them, he cast himself as a strict manager of eunuchs. These myths are central to our story, because the reality behind the myths encouraged a world of possibilities for eunuchs that Qianlong himself had not anticipated. Subsequent chapters will explore the world Qianlong’s policies created; this chapter, however, focuses on the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of Qianlong’s rule over his eunuchs. As we will see, Qianlong’s subtle tolerance of his eunuchs’ activities grew steadily, reaching its height in the last decade of his rule. These changes may have been a product of his advancing age and many years spent on the throne, but they also appear to have been a response to an increasingly severe eunuch shortage. In response to that shortage, Qianlong, perhaps working in concert with his chief minister of the imperial household, Hešen, quietly instituted two unusual policies designed to increase the number of his eunuchs. Our story begins, however, with the important factor of Qianlong’s sense of his reign’s place in history, for it was this sense that motivated his especial concern for keeping eunuchs well controlled. T H E P R E S SU R E S O F A G L O R IO U S AG E

The Qianlong emperor was acutely aware that he reigned during a flourishing time in his dynasty’s history. His was an age of peace and prosperity; the only military conflicts were those being carried out at the borders to further the Manchu imperial agenda. This gave the emperor the luxury of focusing on the promotion of culture, and Qianlong did so with a verve that far surpassed that of his forefathers. He was both a great patron of the arts and a passionate collector. He also sponsored the greatest literary projects in China’s history. In the arc of a dynasty’s history, his reign was a shengshi—a glorious age when the dynasty was at its peak.3 In reading history, however, Qianlong saw that dynasties at their height also carried within them the seeds of their destruction. This was the logic implicit in

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the rise and fall of ruling houses and was represented in the hexagram feng in the Book of Changes, which denoted the sun at noonday. When the sun reached its height, it began the process of decline.4 Decline was inevitable, but a vigilant emperor could delay it through careful rule. The need for vigilance was greatest in the period of prosperity. As a Manchu, Qianlong was also conscious of the perils of prosperity. Surrounded by the sumptuousness of his flourishing age, he anguished over military decline within the eight banners, the loss of basic skills in horsemanship and archery, the loss of frugality, and the decline in Manchu-language ability.5 The continuing strength of the dynasty would require constant vigilance against the dangers of prosperity—especially for those living in Beijing, with its many temptations.6 Qianlong’s desire to forestall the decline of his dynasty had everything to do with eunuchs—men he saw as fixated on leading those they served into temptation. As he noted, this was the way of eunuchs, whether it was Zhao Gao in the Qin dynasty, Qiu Shiliang of the Tang, or Wei Zhongxian in the Ming.7 Each had arranged distractions for those they served so they could seize imperial power. A student of history, Qianlong knew well that eunuchs had brought the great dynasties of the past to ruin. We are fortunate to have some of his own writings on history, and eunuchs come up often in them. Qianlong described the grievous errors made since ancient times by rulers who put their trust in eunuchs. In the later Han, for example, rulers turned to eunuchs for assistance in court struggles which, Qianlong wrote, was like trying to put out a fire with firewood.8 In the Tang, the eunuch Gao Lishi became so influential that he helped the emperor decide which son to name crown prince. “How could such a thing” Qianlong asked, “be decided by a eunuch?” This decision, he wrote, ultimately led to the An Lushan Rebellion and the decline of the Tang.9 Tang emperors had also made the grave error of giving military command to eunuchs.10 The Song had made the same mistake, Qianlong wrote, allowing eunuchs to become military planners.11 It was the rise of eunuch power in the Ming dynasty, however, that served as the greatest warning to Qianlong, as reflected in his extensive commentary on the issue. His tropes were the foolishness of emperors who fell for eunuchs’ old tricks, and the cowardice of undependable officials. Qianlong wrote about events during the reign of the Zhengde emperor (r. 1505–1521). When officials submitted a memorial urging that the corrupt eunuch Liu Jin be executed, the emperor became so emotional that he could not stop crying, and refused to eat. Qianlong said that this demonstrated his extreme bias in favor of eunuchs and his inability to exercise self-control.12 Qianlong was also shocked by events in the early-fifteenth-century reign of Zhengtong, when the emperor showed eunuchs so much favor that they took over the position of judicial surveillance commissioner. Qianlong described the scene of an ugly eunuch (he used the phrase chou xingyu, a most insulting term) sitting

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front and center while high officials sat as his subordinates, with not one person daring to protest.13 Ming officials were cowards who “drifted with the stream,” to use Qianlong’s phrase. Just a few were upright.14 One of the most important lessons of the past, then, was that the ruler could not depend on his officials for protection against eunuch power. Eunuchs could certainly be evil, but the fault lay not with them or with the officials who failed to protect against them, but with the rulers who had let down their guard.15 Because the prosperity of his reign demanded special vigilance, Qianlong periodically promulgated edicts regulating eunuchs. His very first pronouncements on the subject appeared shortly after he came to the throne, and in one of his very last summations of his career as emperor, issued in 1792, he congratulated himself for diligence in restraining eunuchs over the course of his six-decade reign. Thus he could assure himself and his followers that he had shifted the arc of history back to its proper course, and that the period of his dynasty’s shengshi would continue. W E I Z H U A N D T H E Q IA N L O N G E M P E R O R

Qianlong’s efforts to change the guiding principles of eunuch management, and to sanitize his forefathers’ record of the same, can be seen in how he handled and discussed the eunuch Wei Zhu. This eunuch, who had played such an important role in Kangxi’s reign, and was a thorn in the side of Yongzheng, was still alive in 1736 when Qianlong came to the throne. He remained under house arrest, but the new emperor had moved him from Tuancheng to the Hall of Imperial Longevity, a portrait hall located just north of the Forbidden City where offerings were made to the images of deceased emperors.16 In the hall hung portraits of Wei Zhu’s two previous masters: Kangxi and Yongzheng.17 With his possessions confiscated, Wei had been left in an impoverished state; Qianlong returned him to full salary.18 As we learned in chapter 3, Wei Zhu was a man of science and technology whose handiwork showed exquisite craftsmanship (he had built enameled watches and fowling pieces that were both beautiful and functional)—and he had put his knowledge into the service of court politics. This had earned him a place among Kangxi’s closest, most trusted advisers. We also know, from chapter 4, that in the last years of the Kangxi reign Wei Zhu betrayed Kangxi’s trust, accepting a fortune in bribes to sway the old man’s views of his sons—the men who competed so audaciously for the throne. It is hard to say how much Qianlong cared to admit about Wei Zhu’s darker sides. In his public pronouncements he wrote only that Wei Zhu was someone who had “committed serious wrongdoing under the Yongzheng reign.”19 This would have been an oblique reference to Wei Zhu’s brazen acts following the death of Kangxi, when the eunuch enlarged the house he bought near the deceased emperor’s grave, harming the area’s geomantic properties.

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Qianlong certainly understood, however, how shrewd a eunuch was Wei Zhu, as demonstrated by an episode that occurred in the very first year of his reign, which is described in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces. After Wei Zhu had been convicted of serious crimes and placed under indefinite house arrest, his mother and aged grandmother were also forced, as a punishment, to return to their hometown. Qianlong had been on the throne for about fourteen months when a delegation of princes and high officials came before him to ask that the two women be given special dispensation to return to live in the capital. This request completely vexed Qianlong, who wrote: “Wei Zhu is under house arrest, so how is it that he was able to present his petition to princes and high officials? Where did those princes and high officials go to receive it? Where did Wei Zhu deliver it? This must be carefully investigated.” The question was put to Yūnlu (Prince Zhuang), the emperor’s uncle and trusted household manager, and also to the chief ministers of the imperial household. It was discovered that a relatively minor official had put forward the request on Wei’s behalf. Ultimately, Wei was fined three years of salary and the official was dismissed from office.20 The case demonstrated how shameless Wei Zhu continued to be, and also how well connected. From his house arrest in the Hall of Imperial Longevity, a highwalled building on the palace grounds that was surrounded by an imperial park, he was maintaining a network of connections with people who were willing to risk their reputations to help him. Moreover, this man who had gotten in trouble for being in cahoots with imperial princes was demonstrating that he still had supporters among the top echelon of the imperial family. Qianlong had every right to go hard on Wei Zhu, but instead chose to go easy on him, exempting him from the injury and humiliation of corporal punishment. Whatever hold Wei Zhu had over Yongzheng also mattered in the Qianlong era, even though Yongzheng was dead. Wei Zhu is mentioned several times in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, but these are more of a reconstitution of him than an accurate depiction: the book conceals the extent of his misdoing and, at the same time, presents him as an admirable adviser to emperors who nevertheless would have to be the last of his kind. The edicts reprinted in this book also hint that Qianlong knew a bit more about the sordid sides of the eunuch’s history than he cared to admit. Qianlong’s very first mention of Wei Zhu, reprinted in his palace history, was in an edict promulgated just thirty-five days after he took the throne. Its stated purpose was to criticize eunuchs who acted too informally around the palace and failed to know their place. In this context, he briefly discussed Wei Zhu’s behavior during his father’s reign. “In former times, Sishe’s son Hungjeng called Wei Zhu ‘Uncle.’ My deceased father very strictly taught him a lesson, and so this custom could not be continued.”21 Qianlong thus portrays his father, Yongzheng, as someone who cracked down on informality, ensuring that eunuchs knew their place in the palace hierarchy.

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As is made abundantly clear in chapter 5, however, this episode was about far more than informality around the palace. Sishe was Yūntang, the one who had been forced to change his name to this humiliating Manchu epithet following the death of Kangxi and enthronement of the Yongzheng emperor. Yūntang had used some of his vast fortune to bribe Wei Zhu so that the eunuch would sway Kangxi’s opinion of his son Yūnsy, whom Yūntang supported for the throne. Yūntang ordered his son Hungjeng to kowtow before the eunuch and call him “Uncle,” not because he was carelessly permitting too much informality (as Qianlong had described the situation), but because he was grateful for the eunuch’s help in the succession battle. Moreover, this action on Yūntang’s part showed that he was allowing his son to become Wei Zhu’s adopted nephew. These facts are clearly stated in contemporaneous records, and could not have been lost on Qianlong. Qianlong used Wei Zhu as a negative example again in his palace history when discussing the behavior of the eunuchs who accompanied him on trips outside the palace. On those occasions, he said, in a reprinted edict, they were not to gallop their horses recklessly. Even worse would be what the eunuch Wei Zhu had done under his father’s reign: galloping his horse while shooting arrows—something that could never again be tolerated.22 This brief mention of Wei Zhu on horseback is something that requires additional explanation. As we saw in chapter 1, important Ming–Qing philosophers such as Gu Yanwu frowned upon the general practice of allowing eunuchs to leave the palace. Qianlong’s return to a traditional view of eunuch management would, as we will see below, likewise require him to restrict them from leaving the palace. Qianlong’s criticism of Wei Zhu thus was meant to conform to that principle. The criticism of Wei Zhu’s shooting from horseback merits particular consideration, for as Gu Yanwu had noted, eunuchs’ progression in the Ming dynasty from being well controlled to usurping influence began when they wearied of their work in the palace and became adroit horsemen.23 The most notorious of Ming eunuchs were known for being so brazen as to ride horseback in the precincts of the Forbidden City itself. Attitudes such as Gu Yanwu’s created sensitivity surrounding the issue of eunuchs on horseback; throughout the Qing, the question of which eunuchs could requisition horses, and under what circumstances, was a matter of precise regulation. By 1754, the general practice seems to have been that eunuchs who were permitted to ride on horseback were limited to the use of retired army horses; they were, at least in theory, required to report their horse usage; and of course, they were not to ride within the palace grounds.24 The Manchus were particularly sensitive when it came to the use of horses. They had conquered China on horseback and associated mounted archery with conquest as well as the character of their people and their manhood.25 Throughout

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the Qing, regulations demanded that the conquest elite maintain their skills at mounted archery; more than one emperor engaged in extensive hand-wringing when he perceived Manchu men were losing these essential skills. The image of Wei Zhu shooting arrows from horseback was therefore deeply offensive to the Qianlong emperor. By criticizing this image of Wei Zhu on horseback, Qianlong made clear that he was nudging the arc of history back in the direction of careful eunuch management. In the final mention of Wei Zhu in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, reflecting an edict promulgated six months after the one mentioned above, Qianlong made it clear that Wei Zhu was being cast as the last of his species. In the context of criticizing an official’s routine recommendations about the standard New Year’s gifts to be given to eunuchs, Qianlong wrote: Yesterday I was reading a memorial with recommendations about bestowals I should make on the eunuchs. The memorial used the title “Junior Eunuchs of the Imperial Presence,” which is really a grievous error. In the old days, Wei Zhu and Chen Fu [see chapter 4] had worked long and diligently, and each had high station. Thus, they were called “Eunuchs of the Imperial Presence.” Moreover, only the highest officials within the Imperial Bodyguard are called “Bodyguards of the Imperial Presence.” When it comes to these newly admitted junior eunuchs, how can they be referred to as “of the Imperial Presence?” Referring to them in this way is pure arrogance. In the future if anyone is called by this title, let it be set out in a memorial. And you should let it be known that this is forbidden. If there are those who intentionally break this rule, they shall be judged harshly.26

From this moment, the title “Eunuch of the Imperial Presence” vanishes from the official lexicon, not to reappear for almost a century.27 In this small but very significant statement, Qianlong declares an end to the era of the Eunuch of the Imperial Presence. Never more will there be eunuchs such as Wei Zhu, who served in such an extraordinarily powerful position, as emperors’ advisers and confidants. To further emphasize the point, Qianlong used this opportunity to denigrate and therefore recast the image of his own seniormost eunuch, a man named Su Peisheng, making clear to him and to the imperial court that Su was not, nor could he ever become, a eunuch of the stature of Wei Zhu. Su, who was born to a good family in Daxing County (to the east of Beijing), was by all accounts a good person. From a young age, we learn from the biography on his tombstone, he displayed an air of dignity, was good at his studies, and could read and write. It was on the basis of these qualities that he was selected for palace service. When Qianlong came to the throne at the age of twenty-five, Su Peisheng was a man of sixty-three who had already served Yongzheng and Kangxi before him. Even in his sixties, he was hardworking and energetic, and maintained the respect of inner-court officials and his eunuch colleagues. He seldom thought

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about retirement, but when he finally did retire, the emperor gave him special bestowals, and he lived a reclusive existence in the western part of the capital, where his only visitors were the Buddhist monks who daily arrived to perform ceremonies. When he died, Qianlong provided gold for his funeral and burial.28 This depiction of Su Peisheng, and the kindness Qianlong showed him, stand in stark contrast to a humiliating castigation of the aging eunuch that Qianlong performed when he came to the throne. In his edict on eunuch informality, mentioned above, he had this to say about Su: Su Peisheng is nothing more than a stupid and ignorant man. He was made a chief eunuch and was awarded the fourth rank, not through any particular merit but because my deceased father favored him. Yet he did not give thanks with a sense of fear and shame, and instead dared to behave recklessly. Sometimes he does only a half-kneel in front of my brothers when he pays his respects, or he just joins his hands. He even sits down and converses with Prince Zhuang, which shows a complete lack of propriety! Prince Zhuang is the chief official in the imperial household and has jurisdiction over every eunuch regardless of rank. But Su Peisheng has no regard for the Imperial Household Department. And he forgets that Prince Zhuang is the son of the Kangxi emperor, and the brother of my deceased father.29

Qianlong went on to gripe further about the liberties taken by Su Peisheng: On another occasion, when I was with Prince He and others at Nine Continents in Peace Hall [Jiuzhou qingyan] in the Yuanming Yuan, watching over the rituals, Su Peisheng and his staff were eating and drinking there. Not only did these servants not withdraw; they lingered and ate together with the princes. And the princes even coveted what the eunuchs were eating as they ate together! After I arrived the eunuchs sat for a while and then they left. After this I resolved not to take my meals at Nine Continents in Peace Hall. So in this one moment in which the princes let their guards down, Su Peisheng arrogantly stepped in, openly sitting and eating together with these sons of emperors. These sorts of perverse incidents are legion, and I have witnessed them personally.30

As a rhetorical strategy, Qianlong deftly used the trope of criticizing eunuchs’ informality to avoid overt blame of his father and grandfather—men who, in Qianlong’s opinion, had failed to be sufficiently vigilant against eunuchs. Wei Zhu, as we have learned, was not merely someone who had been too informal; he was a powerful eunuch in the mold of Ming eunuchs. He had received special favor, according to Qianlong, only because of his many years of hard work—not because Kangxi had mistakenly given him too much power and influence. He was also represented as a relic from a bygone era, when eunuchs were hardworking enough to still hold the title “Eunuch of the Imperial Presence.” By contrast, Qianlong constructed Su Peisheng, in the same edict, as “nothing more than a stupid and ignorant man,” lest someone think he could have attained the status and influence

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of a Wei Zhu. It is clear, however, that Su had to be much more than that if he had been made a chief eunuch. Declaring the end of the era of Eunuchs of the Imperial Presence was one way in which Qianlong, without explicitly criticizing his father and grandfather, set the dynasty on a new course. If Wei Zhu had been an intimate counselor to emperors, Su Peisheng was a senior manager of eunuchs only, a harmless man who occasionally overstepped his rightful position. S A L A RY A N D R A N K S

Qianlong changed course on the key elements of his father’s plan for eunuch management: the increase in salary and the institution of a system of ranks that mirrored the official system. As described in the previous chapter, the Yongzheng emperor had worked to improve eunuch salaries and income, in part because he sought ways to motivate eunuchs to work harder, and in part because he felt genuine compassion for them. Salary represented the bulk of the eunuchs’ official compensation, and its change over time is an important bellwether of imperial attitudes. As we observed in chapter 6, Yongzheng most likely effectively doubled eunuch salaries, which probably left most of them earning in the range of four to six taels per month. Salary itself was only part of the eunuchs’ compensation package. They also received a rice allotment of one and a half bushels (hu) per month, which they collected four times a year. This was a sizable amount of grain—approximately 56 kilograms (125 pounds), considerably more than what a single person would consume. Eunuchs could use these grains to cook their meals or provision family members, but most of them sold it on the Beijing market.31 As northerners, they preferred a different staple. Moreover, all but the highest-level eunuchs received rice of poor quality (laomi, or stale rice). Selling it generally brought them little in the way of monetary profit.32 When Qianlong returned to the traditional view of eunuch management, he moved quietly against the magnanimity of his father. He reduced the salary of rank-and-file eunuchs to pre-Yongzheng levels, resetting it to two taels per month. It remained at that low level throughout his reign.33 This sum was just sufficient to cover their everyday needs.34 On two taels per month they did not have to fear starvation or homelessness. If they lived only from their official compensation, however, it was a spartan existence, and they could not easily share their income with family. Qianlong also ensured they were kept in that low economic state by limiting their end-of-year bonuses to levels he set in a chart in the published palace regulations.35 As if his return to Kangxi-era salaries were not enough, in March 1747 Qianlong demonstrated even greater rigor. In the case of eunuchs who ran away, even if they

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promptly and of their own accord returned to duty, their salary would be reduced from two taels per month to one. The edict announcing this policy was published in A History of the Palaces of Our Dynasty, to confirm and proclaim his stringency in managing eunuchs.36 On a salary of one tael per month it was nearly impossible for eunuchs to get by, yet a considerable number found themselves in this predicament. Qianlong also determined to backtrack on his father’s policy of awarding ranks to eunuchs. Scholars such as Gu Yanwu had warned about the dangers of giving ranks to eunuchs, which made them more like officials and less like servants.37 Qianlong also described the dangers of the practice in his notes on history. He pointed out that in the Tang, Suzong had given ranks to eunuchs, which enabled the treacherous Li Fuguo to become more powerful than officials, and ultimately to kill Suzong’s wife, the Empress Zhang.38 In the Song, the Wudi emperor awarded ranks and titles to eunuchs, and even allowed a eunuch to make offerings to Confucius, which Qianlong saw as a grievous mistake. Even the Mongols, Qianlong noted, would criticize the Song for this.39 While the folly of these formerly great dynasties led Qianlong to announce a change to his father’s policy, it would be only partially implemented. Following the demands of filial piety, Qianlong was careful to explain the change in a way that paid respect to his father’s legacy. “In my father’s era,” he wrote, “eunuchs respected the rules and labored with care. It was for this reason that he showed them special favor and awarded them official ranks, which was a true honor.” Rather than place the blame directly on his father for the mistake of giving ranks to eunuchs, Qianlong asserted that it was the degeneration of eunuch behavior, their growing arrogance, that caused him to threaten to remove all ranks for eunuchs and thus change the system his father had created.40 His attitude soon softened, however. In 1742, when he issued his series of seven strict rules for eunuchs to observe, he made the very first rule an emphatic statement about eunuch ranks. Rather than removing all ranks, he reasserted the principle that eunuchs could not rise above rank four: “Eunuchs who work in the palace and elsewhere should not rise above the fourth rank, and never should they attain the third, second, or first ranks.”41 Though he kept a ranking system in place, he never allowed it to mature into the nuanced incentive system that Yongzheng had envisioned.42 Yongzheng’s system would have had eunuchs awarded regular promotions and demotions as a way of pushing them to excel. Instead, Qianlong’s system provided simply that all supervisory eunuchs be ranked seven or eight.43 Assistant supervisory eunuchs and all rank-and-file eunuchs were unranked.44 Technically, chief eunuchs could be ranked four or five, though in practice these numbers meant very little; the only rankings that really mattered were those of chief and supervisory eunuchs—a subject to which we return in a subsequent chapter.

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T H E M Y T H O F N O T “ W I E L D I N G T H E B RU SH”

To the Qianlong emperor, the central danger posed by eunuchs was the threat that they might interfere in politics. He knew well the exploits of the three most hated Ming eunuchs: Wang Zhen, Liu Jin, and Wei Zhongxian. Each of them had interfered in politics in different ways and had ultimately usurped political power. What they had in common was service in the Directorate of Ceremonial (Sili jian), the most powerful of Ming eunuch agencies.45 Service in that office entitled them to “wield the brush,” effectively empowering them to draft edicts on the emperor’s behalf. As demonstrated in chapter 4 in the context of Kangxi’s reign, once given permission to draft edicts, eunuchs could easily gain access to political power.46 The notion of wielding the brush is a subject worth some additional reflection. From a Daoist viewpoint, which informed the general understanding of Chinese calligraphy, writing was considered an act of creation associated with yin and yang. When the calligrapher grasped the yang brush and dipped it into the yin pool of ink in the inkstone, he made possible the creation of the written word on paper. This replicated the act of procreation and of creation itself, through which the things of the world were brought into being via the union of yin and yang.47 Wielding the brush was thus a quintessentially masculine, yang activity. Since eunuchs were considered purely yin in nature, their wielding the brush was a transgressive act.48 Qianlong documented the perils of eunuch literacy in his notes on history, setting out his full view on the subject and describing the disaster it had brought to the Ming. He allowed that eunuchs could be taught to recognize characters and remember personal names so that they could get a general sense of a text’s meaning. Gathering them by the hundreds together into a school, however, and ordering highly educated officials to teach them was a grave mistake. Once eunuchs were highly educated they could wield the brush on the emperor’s behalf, transmitting orders for him and growing familiar with officials. This was a situation, he said, from which no good could ever come.49 In the thirty-fourth year of his reign (1769), Qianlong changed eunuch education policy, closing the school for eunuchs that had been established in the Wanshan Dian. The presence of a school in that holy place where monks practiced religion, he noted, was completely inappropriate. Even more important, he wrote, eunuchs should not be employed in positions that required a high level of education. In the Wanshan Dian their teacher was a senior Han scholar—which, he noted, was completely improper. There were already eunuchs learning Manchu under the guidance of a low-level clerk working under the direction of the Imperial Household Department, and that should be sufficient for eunuchs who needed to know a few Chinese characters. Thereafter, he ordered, eunuchs who studied Chinese would do so in the same schoolroom as those studying Manchu, and

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would do so under the guidance of a tutor from the Imperial Household Department.50 What Qianlong did not, and really could not, say was that his grandfather the Kangxi emperor had been the one who set up the eunuch school that he himself was abolishing. While Qianlong seemed intent on nudging the arc of history by leaving eunuchs largely uneducated and learning “just a few characters” from low-level clerks, the reality was that he, too, needed educated eunuchs. The Imperial Household Department was a vast apparatus, and most of it was staffed by eunuchs. Some of the most important positions in the imperial household required keeping track of objects, a responsibility that often required a high degree of literacy. The emperor’s extensive wardrobe, for example, was managed by eunuchs, and the office responsible for those garments also maintained an important record book of what the emperor wore throughout the day, and on particular days. Among the sixty-four eunuchs who staffed his wardrobe office was a “writing characters” eunuch who could maintain the records.51 There were also record books for gifts, for objects in storerooms, and for genealogical data concerning imperial womenfolk. Chief eunuchs also memorialized the throne, and thus had to be trained in calligraphy and bureaucratic prose style. Finally, one of the most important eunuch agencies was the Memorial Transmission Office, which was responsible for the delivery and channeling of official documents. Its eunuchs were highly literate. Finally, there were a large number of confidential documents that the emperor needed to access, and these were handled and maintained by eunuchs. One of these categories of documents was the Provincial Officials Record Book (Daofu jizai), a register in which Qianlong recorded his candid observations of officials. In short, the bureaucracy of the palace world was so complex that there simply had to be literate eunuchs. For all the literary skills of Qing eunuchs, however, one important difference from the Ming was how their literacy was described. Gone were the august names of Ming eunuch agencies, which were now replaced with innocuous-sounding and largely secret organizations that are nearly impossible to learn much about. There was, for example, a subdivision of the Memorial Transmission Office that was given the bland name Writing Characters Office (Xiezi chu).52 We know very little about its history or operation, except that within it worked some of the most literate of Qing eunuchs. Thus it was that a kind of mythology was born in the Qianlong era, according to which the subject of eunuch education was taboo. Yet eunuchs were being educated in Chinese and also in the Manchu language—remarkable, when one considers that Manchu functioned as a security language for the dynasty: officials sometimes communicated in Manchu when they did not want Han Chinese to be able to know their thoughts.53 Qianlong thus acquiesced in allowing some members of a group whom he considered inherently dangerous to his rule to possess

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the ability to read this security language. He just never talked about eunuch literacy too openly, and when he did, as mentioned above, it was described as the ability “to read a few characters.”54 Eunuch literacy would remain a taboo subject for the rest of the Qing; even at the end of the dynasty, the highly literate eunuchs An Dehai and Li Lianying were quiet about their ability to read and write. Li Lianying had a powerful memory, and had studied many works in the Confucian canon.55 His refusal to be open about his level of education directly reflected attitudes traceable to the Qianlong period. T H E M Y T H O F “SP R AY I N G A N D S W E E P I N G”

In the climate of North China, dust is a constant enemy. So thick are the sands blowing in from the Mongol steppe that tidy people usually dust daily, and sometimes even twice daily. In the imperial household, eunuchs sprayed water to keep dust down, and swept and dusted constantly. The Palace Cleaning Office (Dasao chu) was the eunuch agency that was primarily responsible for keeping the palace clean of dust. The work was not complex, but it required constant discipline and hard work. As noted previously, the Palace Cleaning Office was the most common office to which new recruits were assigned. Miscreant eunuchs were usually reassigned to this office, because it was believed these low-skilled but highly supervised jobs would help them reform, under the watchful eyes of strict supervisors.56 So integral was dusting to the work of eunuchs that there was an annual Rid the Palace of Dust Day, in which all eunuchs were expected to take part.57 Cleaning in the palace world was certainly important, but only a small number of eunuchs engaged in it as their primary occupation. Thus, the following remark made by Qianlong in 1792 is surprising. “When it comes to our dynasty’s eunuchs,” he wrote, “I have employed them only in spraying and sweeping, and they have never dared to become involved in government.”58 He uses a very similar sentence in an edict he promulgated five years earlier.59 While Qianlong, with these statements, was merely affirming his diligence in keeping eunuchs away from government, the phrase “spraying and sweeping” stands out. Whether we view it as literal description of what eunuchs were supposed to do, or a more general catch-all phrase, it suggests eunuchs worked at menial tasks. In reality, eunuchs in the Qianlong reign, as in other reigns, performed highly specialized tasks requiring considerable expertise. Whether it was eunuch craftsmen who worked in the imperial workshops; ritual specialists who arranged the elaborate sacrificial offerings; actors who performed in the imperial theater; cooks who prepared the exquisite meals; eunuch-monks, who served in the temples on palace grounds (and beyond) and learned temple rituals and the chanting of sutras; or gardeners who tended the extensive gardens (just to name a very few examples)—eunuch work

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went far beyond rudimentary tasks. Sadly, the details of most of their specialized crafts are lost to us, having been passed down master to apprentice in a system in which little or nothing was written down. Instead, we catch glimpses of the enormous stress that specialization and the master–apprentice relationship put on eunuchs. The historical records include frequent mention of eunuchs who ran away because they could not bear the intense pressure of learning their craft. Albert Mann, who wrote an M.A. thesis in the 1950s on eunuchs in the Qing court, suspected that this passing of carefully controlled knowledge from master to apprentice was a main factor in explaining the durability of the eunuch institution.60 An examination of the history of the phrase “spraying and sweeping” explains Qianlong’s application of it. The phrase was first used in connection with the first Ming emperor, Hongwu (enforcer of strict eunuch policies), who was recorded as saying he had restricted his eunuchs to “spraying and sweeping.”61 It carried his message that eunuchs posed a dynastic threat, and that limiting them to these tasks would prevent them from doing harm. The same sources often faulted Yongle, the Ming emperor who, later in the dynasty, made the grievous error of according eunuchs greater influence. In the one of the most famous documents in Ming history—the memorial by the censor Yang Lian in which he impeached the hated eunuch Wei Zhongxian—Yang used the phrase to praise Hongwu’s limitation of eunuch power.62 Qianlong, by invoking the notion of limiting eunuchs to “spraying and sweeping,” was revealing not only which texts he was reading, but also the particular view of eunuch management to which he was returning. The model that Qianlong invoked not only harked back to a Ming model; it also harked back to the professed model of his grandfather Kangxi, who likewise had spoken of limiting eunuchs to “spraying and sweeping.” Just after the midpoint of his reign, when congratulating himself on having kept eunuchs in check for decades, he wrote: “I only order my eunuchs to engage in spraying and sweeping, and they run to and fro in their work, sometimes smiling and sometimes frowning, but I take no note of them.”63 Finally, the term “spraying and sweeping” also shows the gap between rhetoric and reality. As noted at the beginning of this book, the Qing rulers, having followed after the Ming, were bent on showing that they had finally ended the problem of eunuch usurpation of power, and had kept eunuchs in their place. Each of these emperors, however—whether Shunzhi, Kangxi, or Qianlong—used eunuchs in ways that far exceeded mere spraying and sweeping. T H E M Y T H O F A C L O SE D PA L AC E

Aware of the problems Ming eunuchs caused as imperial agents outside the palace, Qing rulers claimed to be strict in ending the practice. In some ways, they were.

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Gone were the days when emperors stationed eunuchs in the south to superintend the production of imperial wares; instead, bondservants or officials performed those tasks. Yet the archival record demonstrates that the Qing practice of sending eunuchs outside the palace never wholly subsided. Instead, when Qing rulers dispatched eunuchs on missions, they did so much more quietly than their Ming predecessors, and they never sent them on military assignments.64 Eunuchs’ roles in temple construction and renovation provide a telling example. As noted in chapter 4, many Ming-era temples were associated with famous and powerful eunuchs, and no secret was made of these men’s involvement in imperial construction projects outside the palace; on the contrary, their names were publicly attached to those projects, and emperors dispatched the eunuchs personally. In the Qing, eunuch involvement in temple construction was a far quieter affair, especially after the Kangxi period.65 Furthermore, Qing eunuchs, as Susan Naquin has noted, did not serve as surrogates for emperors outside the palace in matters of religion. Even as powerful a eunuch as the above-mentioned Li Lianying of the late Qing kept his temple-building projects quiet, whether or not they were done at the empress dowager’s orders.66 Eunuchs were quietly sent out on missions in the Shunzhi, Kangxi, and Yongzheng reigns, either at the behest of emperors or at the behest of other members of the imperial family.67 The same was true of the Qianlong period. Once on the outside, as we have seen in previous reigns, eunuchs sometimes got into trouble. (Perhaps the worst offenders were the eunuchs dispatched by Yūnceng and Yūntang, who purchased boys and girls for their masters’ pleasure.) Qing eunuchs were commonly dispatched on more innocuous missions, such as to buy clothing or furniture for the palace. Even then, incidents of troublemaking might erupt. Eunuchs’ ability to cause trouble outside the palace was rooted in the power dynamic already described: they were lowly servants inside the palace but powerful outside, and therefore able to intimidate ordinary Beijing residents. The general phenomenon of eunuchs being dispatched on missions was related to, but separate from, the extent to which they were confined to the palace. Published regulations, and those reprinted in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, depict a palace that was carefully guarded against coming and going. Our general image of eunuchs has been of men who, once they left home, entered the palace and never left—and that view has been nurtured by the published Qing sources. While there were some eunuchs who spent their entire careers without leaving the palace, however, many were able to leave the palace on a regular basis, and some even lived outside the palace, entering only as their duties required. Their activities reveal the extent to which the Qing palace was far more porous than previously believed. Even emperors themselves sometimes failed to realize the extent to which eunuchs came and went from the palace at will. The mythology of a closed palace fit with traditional standards of eunuch management. As this chapter

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demonstrates, however, the reality of a quietly open palace meant a world of opportunities for eunuchs. The archival records are filled with examples of eunuchs leaving the palace, and provide clear-cut examples of how closely their home lives could be intertwined with their palace lives. Even from the time they were young, many eunuchs were allowed to live at home. Liu Jinxi, for example, was an eleven-year-old eunuch who was learning to read sutras, in preparation for becoming a palace eunuch-monk. The work was demanding, and young boys were chosen for it so that, trained from an early age, they would be more likely to be able to master the chanting of sutras. Liu was afraid to sleep in the palace, however, so his father picked him up at the palace gate at the end of every day and would return him early the next morning.68 Even young adult eunuchs would continue as members of their families, and consequently would spend time with parents and siblings outside the palace. A eunuch named Wei Jinzhong, who had been castrated at age twenty and sent to work in the Promotion of Virtue Hall (Hongde dian), where the emperor ate small meals while working, would bring his laundry home for his mother to do, then return for just the morning to pick it up. The case came to light only because, one morning in 1781, he went home only to find that his mother had not yet finished washing his clothes, which made him return late.69 In another case, we learn that a eunuch was living at home and would bring palace kitchenware home with him in the evenings to clean. His case became known only because investigators could not understand why only some pots and not others were destroyed in a kitchen fire. The unscathed pots had been at the eunuch’s home.70 These stories, of course, are a far cry from the world of august Ming eunuchs traveling on the seas at the head of navies and other eunuchs being sent as imperial commissioners to the south, where they terrorized the local populace. Yet it was a world not countenanced in published Qing sources, which depicted a closed palace. The honest picture of a palace from which eunuchs could come and go freely threatened accepted ideas of good eunuch management. The published regulations governing admission to the palace that appeared in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces depicted a regime under which eunuchs who came and went, or who caused problems on the outside, were carefully punished. In 1739, for example, Qianlong learned that the chief eunuch of the wardrobe office had given the eunuch Li Pan four or five days’ leave, during which time he had spread word of court activities in the household of Hongxi, the son of Yūnceng. Since a leave should be no longer than one or two days, Qianlong queried, how was it that this eunuch was given four or five days? He called for an investigation into the actions of both the chief eunuch and his subordinate supervisory eunuchs, and for strict measures to carefully monitor eunuchs’ comings and goings, regulate their leave times, and curtail their ability to bring strangers in without permission.71 This edict, too, would be published in Qianlong’s palace history.72 Its limited

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effectiveness is made clear, however, by a 1751 edict, published in palace regulations, noting that many of those who guarded admission to the palace were afraid to interfere with eunuchs’ entrances and departures, leaving the security of the gates at risk.73 There were several good reasons why the Qing never truly, except perhaps in the wake of the Eight Trigrams uprising (see the conclusion), tried to seal the palace from the outside world. A porous palace absolutely served the needs of the emperor. While most of his eunuchs got their training in the palace, through knowledge passed down from master to apprentice, there were also instances in which eunuchs could profit from training on the outside. This is why the Kangxi emperor had chosen to send his eunuchs out for training in barbering and massage, provided they returned at night (See chapter 3 p. 81). Later in the dynasty, the return-at-night proviso was dropped for eunuchs studying a craft on the outside, and they were permitted to return to the palace as their work schedules required.74 Another factor that made the Qing rulers unwilling to enforce a ban on leaving the palace was that it would make an already difficult job even less palatable to potential recruits. The men and boys who became eunuchs had to endure the pain and humiliation of castration. Those who were childless at the time had to live without biological offspring, which was a difficult choice for someone who lived in a Confucian society. Asking those recruits to sever contact with their families would be asking too much, especially given the Qing preference for recruiting the very young. Boys would be much less likely to become eunuchs if it meant they could never see their parents again, or, as in the case of the sutra-chanting eunuch mentioned above, if they could not return to their families at night. Perhaps most important, it became impossible for the Qing to contemplate a world in which eunuchs were completely confined to the palace because there was no single palace. In the eighteenth century, palace life became divided between two palace complexes: the Forbidden City and the Yuanming Yuan (which was located a day’s journey to the northwest). Kangxi began construction of a hunting lodge on the grounds of what would become the Yuanming Yuan. Yongzheng enlarged it and enjoyed spending time there. But under Qianlong, the Yuanming Yuan was vastly enlarged and embellished, and became the paragon achievement of eighteenth-century Chinese architecture and landscape architecture.75 The Yuanming Yuan became Qianlong’s adored home. He would spend only two months a year at the Forbidden City, which became more of an administrative hub, returning as soon as the New Year observances were over to his beloved Yuanming Yuan. At the peak of its development, five to six hundred eunuchs were permanently stationed there. Many others, however, were attached to offices that were housed in the Forbidden City, but then sent out from there to the Yuanming Yuan or other duty stations as the need arose. These included temples, temporary imperial residences, gardens, and hunting lodges.

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With the advent of Yuanming Yuan and other building projects, eunuchs fluidly and frequently moved through the city and beyond. Despite all this movement, the rhetoric of Qianlong’s edicts continued to depict a closed palace. The archival record, however, depicts a very different world, demonstrating that eunuchs were dispatched from one palace to another to carry out particular tasks, with the instruction that they were to return when the tasks were completed. Such was the case with the eunuch Wang Rui, who was employed as a horticulturalist in the Forbidden City. His supervisory eunuch sent him to the Yuanming Yuan to help with the gardens there, and told him to return when he was finished. He got his job done the next day, but stopped for drinks on the way back, lost track of the time, and then decided to run off.76 The openness of the Qing palaces was reflected not only in how easily eunuchs left, but also in how often outsiders were found inside the palace. In 1750, the eunuch Yu Jinzhong, who worked in the kitchen, was found to have brought his nephew into the palace to live. He beat his nephew so frequently, however, that the boy committed suicide by throwing himself into a well. Suicides in the palace were taken extremely seriously. Yu Jinzhong was given forty blows and sent to Heilongjiang to become a slave to soldiers; several supervisory and chief eunuchs were fined.77 The case received notoriety because of the suicide, but had the nephew not killed himself, he might well have gone on living in the palace unnoticed by the authorities. The case of eunuchs sneaking people in shows how much practical control they had over entrance to the palaces. The general procedure was that access to a palace was controlled in layers, with soldiers at the outer layer and eunuchs inside. The guards let eunuchs and others with permission pass, and then the eunuchs guarded the innermost precincts.78 It was their role guarding admission to the innermost areas of the palace that gave eunuchs tremendous influence over who came and went. Those who entered without the help of eunuchs were promptly discovered and punished. This was the case even when the person was found in an outlying palace. Thus, when in mid-February 1780 a drunken opera singer named Qin Yigong was found wandering around the Qingyi Yuan palace, it was the eunuch Xiong Chang’an who turned him in for punishment.79 Even with eunuch supervision, it could sometimes be hard to monitor just who was in the Forbidden City. Shortly after the New Year observances in 1755, the eminent official Yang Xifu, then president of the Board of Rites, noted that while the Forbidden City should maintain a solemn atmosphere, things had gotten chaotic, with too many unauthorized people milling about. When, during the New Year celebrations, the emperor made his bestowals, many people were crowded on the left side of the Wuying Dian, or Hall of Military Cultivation, and before long people were being robbed in broad daylight. With so many laborers and servants hanging around it became too confusing to investigate. Yang noted that at one

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time, servants who entered the palace were required to wear waistbands authorizing their presence. In recent years, however, there were so many new people inside the palace—hired laborers, temporary cooking staff, and servants to high officials—that things had turned to pandemonium and it was impossible to keep track of comings and goings.80 The quietly porous nature of the Qing palaces is important for this story because of the connections it allowed eunuchs to create in and beyond the city of Beijing. In forming those connections, eunuchs often depended on their ability to use their high status on the outside as a marketable commodity. We explore this subject in more depth in subsequent chapters. THE MYTH OF NO WIVES OR CHILDREN

When Wang Fuzhi, one of the three great thinkers discussed in chapter 1, described the dangers eunuchs brought to a dynasty, he laid special emphasis on the fact that they had no offspring. As noted in that chapter, Wang believed that eunuchs’ lack of family connections meant they were completely without compassion and willing to risk anything to threaten the existence of a dynasty.81 In much of the previous scholarship on eunuchs, authors have likewise stressed the emotional costs on eunuchs who, as men without wives or children, were consigned to fates as outsiders in this very family-centered culture.82 Gu Yanwu saw the issue differently. In his eyes, the problem with eunuchs was not that they were without family. The opposite was the case: they were dangerous when they had offspring on the outside—be they sons, adopted sons, or nephews by blood or by adoption. As noted in chapter 1, he tended to frame eunuch issues in cosmological terms: as essentially “inner” beings, they should be confined to the inner palace. Connections on the outside introduced a dangerous confusion of inner and outer. In more practical terms, he asserted that once eunuchs had families to look after, they were subject to divided loyalties. Eunuchs with sons would be likely to protect and promote the interests of those sons, when they should be faithful to the emperor alone. Gu Yanwu’s observations certainly held true for the Ming dynasty, when eunuchs frequently had sons, and these were the cause of calamity. Gu himself noted, for example, an episode in the Ming dynasty when the eunuch Cao Jixiang’s adoptive son Cao Qin launched what would turn out to be an abortive coup.83 He also quoted the censor Wang Hui (1428–1510?), who memorialized the emperor on the calamities caused when eunuchs developed households of their own. Gu Yanwu would adhere to Wang Hui’s logic linking the practical with the cosmological. Practically speaking, family on the outside led to striving after wealth and lands: “Though their bodies are on the inside, their hearts are on the outside. Inner and outer become connected, which is the origin of disaster.”84

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The phenomenon of eunuchs having their own families predated the Ming. There were indeed many earlier instances of their marrying and adopting sons and, sometimes, daughters. One of the most notorious eunuchs in Chinese history was Zhao Gao, adviser to the first Qin emperor and the eunuch often blamed for the fall of Qin. Zhao had an adopted daughter who married a man who would assassinate the second Qin emperor.85 In the Han period, eunuchs commonly had wives and adopted sons. In the later Han, eunuchs could pass their noble titles and fiefs to their adopted sons.86 In the Tang, eunuchs were so eager to adopt sons that boys were kidnapped from the countryside to satisfy the demand.87 The first Ming emperor was aware of these abuses, and had a particular disdain for eunuchs marrying. Reportedly, he set down the principle that any eunuch who married would be flayed alive. It was not long, however, until eunuch marriages became common in the Ming dynasty. Some eunuchs married women of the upper classes, while others married prostitutes. They often employed matchmakers, and spent untold fortunes on their womenfolk. Although they lacked genitals, some believed that they could regenerate their organs by consuming the brains of young boys. The number of boys who died, we are told, were many.88 Others relied on sandalwood sexual aids. There were even cases of Ming emperors awarding wives to their favorite eunuchs, and bequeathing estates to the wives of deceased eunuchs.89 With so many centuries of precedent warning against the dangers of eunuchs marrying and adopting sons, and the egregious experience of the Ming, one would expect the new Qing rulers to enact strict rules regulating the practice, but this was not the case. In fact there were few if any pronouncements on the subject. Instead, when it came to eunuchs having families of their own, the Qing worked by unspoken rules. In the Shunzhi reign, when Ming eunuch customs were still very much alive, as noted in chapter 2, it was common for eunuchs to have adopted sons, and to refer to them as such.90 Following the Shunzhi reign, however, eunuchs no longer openly married, and no longer adopted sons. When they adopted male offspring, the boys were referred to as adopted nephews rather than sons. Those who were married before they became eunuchs often continued in the marriage, meeting up with their wives and families outside the palace. But they did so in ways that avoided calling attention to themselves and their families.91 It is reasonable to wonder why the Qing never enacted formal rules about eunuchs marrying or adopting sons. One possible explanation is that Qing eunuchs could not be prohibited from marrying or having sons because many Qing eunuchs entered the profession when they were already married and had children. While such men were viewed as less desirable recruits, the Qing never had a plentiful supply of eunuchs and thus could not turn such men away. They tended to be used, instead, for jobs involving manual labor—and quite often in a peripheral location.

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While the Qing rules were never set down in writing, they were certainly hardand-fast. The Qing would witness absolutely nothing like the Ming, when sons were openly adopted and emperors gave their favorite eunuchs gifts of women. Instead, Qing eunuchs created and maintained family ties in quiet ways that did not attract notice. They developed notions of family that were as rich and complex as what humans anywhere, in any time, could conceive—and the court, for its part, essentially looked the other way. This is best demonstrated by the use of the word jiaren, which frequently appears in the imperial household case reports. The term can be translated as “family member” or perhaps “household member”; frequently, it can refer to a household slave. In practice, when imperial household officials went to investigate a case, they would interview people who lived at the eunuch’s home. These tended to be people who went by nicknames rather than their full names, and the officials never really sought to determine their relationship to the eunuch under investigation. They simply referred to all such people as the eunuch’s jiaren. Those family ties sometimes existed within the walls of the palace. It is only by chance that one encounters mention of such relationships, when unrelated crimes are being investigated. We learn, for example, that in July 1751 a palace lady named Meng Erniu had become the adopted daughter of the guard eunuch Zhao Jinzhong. There had been a theft of clothing from the palace in which Meng Erniu worked, and she lost all of her good clothes. The loss caused her much pain, and she cried every day over it. Her adoptive father, the eunuch Zhao Jinzhong, was heartbroken when he saw her weeping, and told her that he would buy her new clothes. Having little money himself, however, he ended up stealing her a set of clothes. Periodically, he also gave her gifts of cash and additional clothing, since she had little of her own. It took the application of torture to get the truth out of the eunuch: that he had stolen clothes from another woman in the palace, pawned them, and used the proceeds to buy clothes for his adoptive daughter. In the end, he was sentenced to being beaten to death—one of the harshest death penalties for a eunuch, designed to both cause pain and serve as a warning to others. Never in their deliberations, however, did the officials of the imperial household note that the eunuch’s relationship with Meng was in violation of the rules. He was punished only for the crime of theft.92 When it comes to the subject of marrying and adopting children, the gap between the myth and reality is less discernible because there were only unspoken understandings, and no formal, written rules on the subject. As outlined above, only eunuchs who were already married when they entered the profession were able to keep their wives; eunuchs could no longer adopt sons; they were permitted to adopt only nephews. Despite the power of these unspoken rules, the court made clear it would avoid subjecting its eunuchs’ relationships to scrutiny.

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T H E M Y T H O F L I M I T I N G N UM B E R S

As discussed in chapter 1, Huang Zongxi argued for the importance of a ruler keeping the number of his eunuchs low. The more eunuchs an emperor had in his service, the more likely they were to cause trouble. Huang had seen the numbers argument in terms of an emperor’s duty to be frugal and focus on his duty to the realm rather than on his own pleasure. Huang articulated this view clearly, and yet he was not its originator. The classic text Rituals of Zhou had prescribed the number of eunuchs—several dozen in number—that should surround the emperor. While some commentators saw this as a required minimum, Wang Yansou, a famous eleventh-century scholar of the classics, interpreted the text as limitation, and used it to lament the bloated number of eunuchs in the service of subsequent rulers.93 Subsequent writers, including Hongwu, the first Ming emperor, followed suit in interpreting the Rituals of Zhou as setting a maximum, not a minimum, number for the ruler’s eunuchs.94 Qing emperors beginning with Kangxi had boasted of the small number of eunuchs in their employ. In 1703, Kangxi put the number of his eunuchs at “no more than four or five hundred.”95 In 1718, he put the number of his own eunuchs and those eunuchs who served in the princely households at a paltry seven hundred, and attributed the low numbers to his smaller complement of palace ladies. He had fewer than five hundred palace ladies, he boasted, in marked contrast to the twenty thousand palace ladies in the Ming. As further proof of his frugality, he noted that many of his palace ladies were over seventy years of age (left over, in other words, from prior reigns). In a reference that would have delighted Huang Zongxi, he noted that several of the palaces he inherited from the Ming were actually deserted, with not enough palace ladies to fill them.96 This was a clear reference to his frugality, and to his successes in making ruling the realm his priority.97 For Qianlong, who worried greatly about the arc of history, the bottom-line number of eunuchs mattered. He was especially interested in the number of Kangxi’s eunuchs because he took Kangxi to be the model of a frugal emperor. Perhaps even more important, if he could show that he had no more eunuchs than Kangxi, it would demonstrate that he was holding the line against dynastic decline. Once again, the Ming dynasty served as the example that should not be imitated. The first Ming emperor had called for a small number of eunuchs, but by dynasty’s end the number had ballooned. To Qianlong, this was the paradigmatic pattern of dynastic collapse. In April 1739, Qianlong ordered a tally of the number of eunuchs in his own, his father’s, and his great-grandfather’s employ. In a memorial dated May 3, 1793, he was informed that Kangxi had 3,343; Yongzhong, 2,575; and himself, 2,789.98 This accounting of Kangxi’s eunuchs, so much higher than Kangxi himself had reported, was exactly what Qianlong needed. Rounding that number downward and taking

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it as his guide, he decreed that he would limit his number of eunuchs to no more than 3,300.99 In order to ensure his court’s compliance with that quota, Qianlong ordered an annual end-of-the-year census of all his eunuchs. Originally, the census was to include not just the total number of eunuchs, but also a tally of new recruits, those returned to commoner status, and those who died of illness.100 The first memorial recording the census gives us one of the only tallies that goes beyond listing the total number of eunuchs. Submitted near the end of the eleventh year of Qianlong’s reign, it noted that in the 383-day period between December 23, 1745, and January 10, 1747, there were ninety-four new eunuchs, one who ran away and returned of his own accord, thirteen who completed terms of punishment for running away and who were returned to service, and five who returned to service (presumably following illness); this was a net increase of one hundred thirteen eunuchs. It also reported that eighty-two eunuchs had died of illness, ten had their salary withdrawn because of long-term illness, thirteen were returned to commoner status, four were sent to serve at the imperial tombs, and one was sent for punishment to Weng Shan, for a loss of one hundred six men. The most important number in the memorial was the total number of eunuchs on the emperor’s staff, which was reported to be 2,997—safely below the limit. Qianlong could boast that his was a frugal household that was avoiding the slide toward bloat that had endangered the Ming.101 Annual memorials were submitted for the rest of his reign; never did they show more eunuchs than 3,300. Unfortunately, subsequent memorials include only a tally of the total number of eunuchs, with no details on numbers of new recruits, runaways, and other permutations. So important was the symbolism of the total number of Qianlong’s eunuchs that exceeding the self-imposed quota would be unacceptable. Clever use of language, however, allowed Qianlong and his court to stay within that quota while actually growing the total number of eunuchs. In his edict calling for the census, Qianlong was vague, ordering a tally of eunuchs “in the Qianqing Gong and such places [Qianqing Gong deng chu].” Subsequent annual census reports repeated the stock phrase of his original order.102 Whom exactly did he intend to be included? Described at length in chapter 2, the Qianqing Gong was the primary audience hall in the Forbidden City, which suggests the term may have been a somewhat loose reference to the core of the Forbidden City.103 A memorial from the chief minister of the imperial household suggested that several duty stations were excluded: Yong’an Si (the Buddhist temple on the island in Beihai), Chanfu Si (a temple in the northwest corner of the palace that Qianlong had created for his mother), the Altar to the Silkworm Goddess, the Jingyi Yuan (Villa of Peace and Harmony, which he had enlarged from the small hunting lodge that Kangxi had here),104 Weng Shan (in northwestern Beijing, where eunuchs were confined for

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periods of punishment), and the Bureau of Imperial Entertainments, on Jing Shan.105 Also excluded were eunuchs stationed at Bishu Shanzhuang (the imperial summer villa in Rehe), the ancestral temple, the Qing tombs, and the Yuanming Yuan, Qianlong’s garden palace northwest of the Forbidden City. Of all these posts, the last offered the most significant loophole. Qianlong was able to vastly increase the number of eunuchs at the Yuanming Yuan without these counting toward the quota. The Yuanming Yuan would grow to need a large number of eunuchs because, as noted above, Qianlong substantially enlarged it. He had added an audience hall, ancestral shrine, Buddhist and other temples, the Wenyuan Ge library that housed his massive Four Treasuries (Siku quanshu) literary project, schools for the princes, a theater, imperial workshops, and a European-style strip of buildings, the remnants of which survive to this day. The Yuanming Yuan under Qianlong grew to a palace with 160,000 square meters of buildings on a parcel of 840 acres. Because of its low walls and sprawling nature, it also required a special security force, in the form of an elite corps of seventy eunuch archers (jiyong taijian).106 There was also a “shopping street” (maimai jie), where eunuch shopkeepers hawked wares to members of the imperial household. Because the Yuanming Yuan was connected by waterways, the imperial family traveled by boat, and a dozen or more eunuchs were involved solely with the punting of boats. Qianlong began by ordering seventy into service at the Yuanming Yuan, but after a time would increase that number to over five hundred, according to one scholar.107 The results of the annual census of eunuchs are presented in figure 9, which shows not only that Qianlong stayed well within the quota of Kangxi’s eunuchs, but that the number of his eunuchs declined steadily over the course of his reign. It reached a low point in 1790, when the palace was more than a thousand eunuchs under quota. Qianlong would boast of this shortage, which he attributed to his harsh supervision of his eunuchs and the few rewards that came from palace service. Because the census did not include the growing number of eunuchs who worked outside the Forbidden City, however, it should not be taken to prove an absolute decrease in the total number of his eunuchs. Rather, it reflects a shortage in the Forbidden City, caused in part by the increasing demand for eunuchs at outer-perimeter duty stations, especially the Yuanming Yuan. In short, Qianlong was exactly the sort of palace builder that worried Huang Zongxi. He may not have filled the Yuanming Yuan with womenfolk, but he certainly needed a large corps of eunuchs for this new garden palace.108 His many other construction projects would likewise require eunuchs to staff them. The annual census, which showed not an increase in his eunuchs but a decrease, however, provided the evidence he needed that he was as frugal as his grandfather. There was another, related loophole built into the language of the bureaucracy. Eunuchs’ duty stations were divided into those that were “in the palace” (gongnei),

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figure 9. Results of annual census of eunuchs, 1747–1806.

sometimes also referred to as “within the perimeter” (neiwei), and “outside the perimeter” (waiwei). In published regulations as well as court documents, service “outside the perimeter” was meant to indicate less sensitive and less important duty stations. Yuanming Yuan eunuchs were in the unusual position of being considered “outside the perimeter,” even though they served at Qianlong’s most beloved residence. The differentiation between inside and outside the perimeter helped Qianlong to fulfill another of his desires: moving young eunuchs to the Yuanming Yuan and older eunuchs to the Forbidden City and elsewhere. Efforts to bring young eunuchs to the Yuanming Yuan are evident at least as early as February 21, 1754, when the emperor ordered the exchange of older eunuchs who worked at the Yuanming Yuan with young eunuchs who worked in the Forbidden City.109 He also ordered that older eunuchs who worked in his palaces generally be swapped for younger eunuchs who worked at the princely households.110 The Qianlong emperor only once explained his preference for young eunuchs. In his edict of 1754, he stated that the eunuchs of the Forbidden City had more important duties than those of the Yuanming Yuan: “In the Yuanming Yuan there

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is nothing more to do than watch over the palace halls and sweep the mountain paths, [tasks that] fail to compare to the important official responsibility of working in the palace [gongnei].”111 Certainly he was being disingenuous; it is abundantly clear that his goal was not to increase his supply of experienced eunuchs at the Forbidden City, but to bring young eunuchs into service at the Yuanming Yuan. If he were truly concerned with increasing experienced eunuchs in the Forbidden City, he would not have instituted a policy of sending older eunuchs to the princely households. The more time he spent in a particular palace, the more he wanted young eunuchs to serve him there, and the Yuanming Yuan was to have the youngest. Old eunuchs were sent to the imperial tombs or even, in a matter that would become something of a scandal, to the Imperial Ancestral Temple.112 He rationalized moving young eunuchs to the Yuanming Yuan, however, with the excuse that they were being sent “outside the periphery.” There are several possible explanations for the Qianlong emperor’s preference for young eunuchs. First, because younger people had fewer social networks, they were perhaps considered to make more loyal servants. Second, younger people, being more agile, were able to fulfill requests faster. Third, younger people, being less set in their ways, were likely to learn quickly. Fourth, younger people were most likely considered more attractive than older people—a difference that, as discussed in the introduction, was perhaps accentuated in the case of eunuchs. Because the Qianlong emperor was building the Yuanming Yuan into an aesthetic masterpiece, he would likely have wanted to have the most attractive people staffing it. Qianlong was caught in a bind. He (and the chief minister of the Imperial Household Department, Hešen) had wanted more eunuchs in palace service, but no emperor claiming to be a Confucian ruler could ever encourage his subjects to be castrated. So, in the last decade of his reign, Qianlong quietly implemented two policies designed to increase the number of eunuchs, and young eunuchs in particular, in his service. The first policy was that the children of rebels and those who killed more than “three or four” members of a family should be castrated and forced to enter palace service. The policy was traceable to 1789, when castration of the sons of men who participated in the Lin Shuangwen rebellion on Taiwan resulted in a bonanza of eunuchs for service. One memorial alone lists forty boys, ranging in age from four to fifteen sui, who were sent to the Imperial Household Department for castration.113 The archives contain many examples of the sons of murderers becoming eunuchs. When the Hunanese Feng Mengxiang brutally murdered his brother, his brother’s wife, and their son he was punished with dismemberment and his wife was sent to Yili as a slave to common soldiers. Their son, Fang Mingzai, eleven sui, was sent to the Imperial Household Department for castration and palace service. In Shandong, Sui Bilong lashed out against four of the kinsmen who had constantly

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bullied him. He too received the punishment of death by dismemberment; his wife, innocent of all crime, was nonetheless sent to Yili as a slave, and their two sons were sent to the Imperial Household Department. The boys were very young, so they would be imprisoned until age eleven sui, when they would be castrated.114 Because of the self-evident problems of having the sons of rebels and murderers serving in close proximity to the emperor, these young people were required to work “outside the perimeter.” In theory, this would have kept them far from the most important duty stations, but in reality, those boys whom the chief eunuchs judged suitable were sent to the Yuanming Yuan. Hešen proposed, and Qianlong approved, a cutoff of age fifteen sui. Those younger were to be castrated and sent into palace service; those older were to be sent to Heilongjiang as slaves to the Solon Battalion.115 The other change, which Confucian authors would later criticize, was to permit those who had castrated themselves—and this was understood as actually performing the operation on themselves, or having it done without the authorization of the Imperial Household Department or Board of Rites—to enter palace service.116 Unlike the rule governing sons of murderers and rebels, the new policy governing self-castration did not specify a preference for young eunuchs. The Qianlong emperor was moved to address the issue of self-castration, however, when he learned about Wang Cheng, a boy claiming to be fifteen sui, whose desperately impoverished parents had their son castrated without authorization.117 Many such eunuchs sent to work “outside the perimeter” ended up at the Yuanming Yuan. This was, for example, the case with Zhang Gou’er, a barber from Shenzhou, in the capital region. Cheated out of his savings and desperate, he cut off his genitals, hoping to become a eunuch. He changed his name to the common eunuch name Zhang Jinzhong, was accepted into service, and was assigned to the Yuanming Yuan.118 Zhang Gou’er’s case came to light because Qianlong had ordered the Imperial Household Department to carefully investigate why those who castrated themselves had done so. Those who acted for any reason other than poverty were to be rejected and punished. Desperation born from poverty was, in Qianlong’s eyes, the only legitimate reason for becoming a eunuch, and investigators were ordered to be particularly on the lookout for instances of criminals who sought to become eunuchs in order to escape the arm of the law.119 This was not an unfounded concern. Thus it was that the monk Nengqing was rejected from palace service, despite the fact that it had been years since his crime—a youthful homosexual relationship.120 Filled with regrets, and threatened with blackmail, he had taken a knife to his genitals. Also suspect was a eunuch named Wang Er, who had castrated himself after the example of his nephew, who had done the same and ended his quest for adequate food and shelter. Wang’s case was borderline, but he was nonetheless accepted into service.121

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While conducting these inquiries, the imperial household investigators extracted confessions that included not only the reasons for which men castrated themselves, but the specifics of how they had done so. They also went so far as to obtain confessions from family members or others who witnessed the act or its aftermath. Hu Tingdong’s circuitous journey to eunuch service is, in some respects, representative. His family had slipped into poverty after his father died when he was still young. At age twenty-two, single and unable to find work, he turned to begging to survive. After many years as an itinerant beggar, he returned home to Beijing to discover that his mother had died, and found his younger brother and nephew in a starving condition. He thus conceived of the idea of castrating himself and becoming a eunuch to save himself and his family. His chosen method was to use a scythe on his genitals, which he had tied with a cord attached to a window lattice to provide tension. When the matter was reported to the local yamen, he was ordered to remain at home to recover from the mutilation before reporting to the Imperial Household Department for examination. When after two weeks he had still not healed, and desperate still to save his family from poverty, he snuck off in the night, hoping to be registered to begin work as soon as possible. He was forced to turn to begging again along the way, however, when the pain from the unhealed wound became unbearable. If the frigid winter weather and lack of clothing and travel funds were not enough, when spring arrived and he had sufficiently recovered, he was struck with malaria. Hu began to think of turning himself in, when he was captured by yamen lictors. When the Imperial Household Department examiners looked at his body, they found he had done an excellent job with the castration; both penis and testes were fully removed. Since their examination was preliminary only, they recommended that Hu be sent in for a complete examination, in preparation for palace service.122 The annual census of eunuchs demonstrates that, over time, these two measures allowed the Imperial Household Department to increase the number of eunuchs in its charge. The number of self-castrators was not great, but instances in which three or four members of a family were murdered happened with some regularity, as did rebellions. These tragic events helped the Imperial Household Department to solve the eunuch shortage without having to resort to what Qianlong would never abide: openly paying more to potential recruits. All the while, Qianlong could adhere to the myth that he was limiting the numbers of his eunuchs. C O N C LU SIO N : T H E M Y T H O F D I R E C T C O N T R O L

So it was that the Qianlong emperor—who came to the throne with distinct ideas about nudging the arc of history back to the strict management of eunuchs based on classical wisdom—somehow created a system that in some respects only superficially conformed to those norms. At the same time, his reforms to reduce salaries

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and limit eunuch ranks were real changes. He put an end to the Eunuchs of the Imperial Presence, which meant that, effectively, there would be no more eunuchs of the stature of Wei Zhu until the end of the dynasty. Qianlong also reduced salaries and made ranks insignificant. In other respects, however, Qianlong’s crackdown on eunuchs was superficial, and led to his promotion of this set of myths. He closed the school for eunuchs even as the eighteenth-century palace would absolutely require and quietly promote eunuch literacy. He boasted that he limited his eunuchs to “spraying and sweeping,” even as they developed the specialized skills necessary to support his cosmopolitan interests. He continued to adhere to the myth that his palace was a closed world, even as eunuchs traveled freely between the Yuanming Yuan, the Forbidden City, and other duty stations. He chose to believe that his eunuchs lacked wives and children, when in fact they created rich worlds of families. He created a census to ensure that there were not excessive numbers of eunuchs in the palace, even though he encouraged creative accounting strategies so that he could reassure himself that the number of his eunuchs was not greater than that of his grandfather. To these myths we may add a final, significant one: the myth that he personally watched over his eunuchs, when in reality he established a system in which they were managed by proxy. In his edict written as a preface to A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, the Qianlong emperor remarked on the role of eunuchs in the fall of the Ming. While some blamed the eunuchs themselves, Qianlong was careful to disagree. Since earliest times, he said, everyone had been well aware that eunuchs were, by nature, capable of bringing about the fall of a dynasty. Therefore, if a dynasty fell into the hands of eunuchs, it was the fault of no one other than the emperor himself, who should know enough to guard against this most ancient of evils. Like Kangxi, Qianlong saw the duty to be on guard against eunuch encroachment into imperial power as thus a duty personally incumbent on the emperor himself. As this chapter has illustrated, Qianlong was ever conscious of how his eunuch policies reflected his personal diligence and frugality, of how he personally had to remain vigilant against eunuch encroachments of power, and of the fact that imperial power could not be shared. It was one thing to pay lip service to these facts, but quite another to keep personal watch over the thousands of eunuchs in one’s service; that obligation had to be delegated and systematized. So Qianlong, who professed devotion to personal vigilance against eunuch excesses, created a system for delegating the monitoring of them. Elements of that system predated the Qianlong period, but it reached maturity during his reign. The rationale and components of this system are the subject of the next chapter.

8

Qianlong’s Flawed System of Oversight

While the Qianlong emperor paid lip service to the need to personally watch over his eunuchs, in reality he delegated their management to a system of institutions that had begun under his father and grandfather, but which he greatly developed. This chapter examines his system in detail, showing how, on the surface, it appeared to monitor eunuchs and provide him with the reassurance he needed that these men, whom he individually liked but collectively considered the traditional scourge of Chinese government, were not getting up to their old tricks. The chapter also reveals the flaws that made the system much weaker than it appeared. Here we observe some of the ways in which Qianlong-era eunuchs could exploit these flaws to their personal benefit. In the next chapter, we turn to the world of eunuch prosperity that Qianlong’s flawed system of oversight and his eunuchs’ adroit use of those flaws made possible. The first component of Qianlong’s system was the Office of Palace Justice, or Shenxing Si—an office within the Imperial Household Department that was charged with investigating eunuch misdeeds. Its chief function was to interrogate the accused and, if the transgression was serious, any witnesses. We also examine the product of these investigations: case reports compiled by chief ministers of the Imperial Household Department and presented in memorial format to the emperor. These reports form a key source in this study, but to understand them, one must understand the function they served in Qianlong’s system for eunuch discipline. They depicted an ordered and highly disciplined palace world, where even the slightest infraction was carefully investigated. If a eunuch disturbed this carefully monitored world, the case reports were there to reassure the emperor that the truth had been fully uncovered, that there was no conspiracy, and that any 173

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slight disruption to the palace peace had been corrected. The reassuring world of these case reports differed considerably from the reality of Qianlong’s palace. The second component in the system was the eunuch hierarchy: the system of supervisory and chief eunuchs. While Qianlong may officially have subscribed to the notion that watching over eunuchs was the job of the emperor, in practice, as noted in the previous chapter, he used a responsibility system in which chief eunuchs were responsible for supervisory eunuchs, who in turn were answerable for the rank and file. In this, Qianlong was continuing Kangxi’s emphasis on the role of the middle-level eunuchs in controlling their underlings. By eliminating the rank of Eunuch of the Imperial Presence (Yuqian taijian), Qianlong also ensured that chief eunuchs would be senior managers rather than advisers to emperors. The third component in Qianlong’s system for eunuch management was the Inner Police Bureau, or Fanyi Chu. Yongzheng had set up this police force, but Qianlong integrated it into the life of the capital such that it became almost synonymous with the investigation of eunuch wrongdoing and, most specifically, escape. When eunuchs ran away from the palace, the supervisory eunuch would report the matter to the chief eunuch, who in turn would report it to the ministers of the Imperial Household Department. These ministers would then dispatch the Fanyi police to track down the offenders. Reputed to be men of dogged determination, the Fanyi policemen were said to have stopped at nothing to get their eunuch. In theory at least, they knew the temples where eunuchs most often fled, and their other hangouts in the city. They also worked under the assumption that most eunuchs ran to their hometowns—and so after checking the haunts around Beijing, they traveled to the escaped eunuch’s hometown and interviewed relatives. The Fanyi policemen reputedly used disguises to pursue escaped eunuchs, lest the escapees learn that their pursuers were closing in on them. Yet as we shall see, despite the reputation of the Inner Police Bureau, an Achilles heel hampered their effectiveness: they were paid on a per capita basis for capture of miscreant eunuchs. As bounty hunters, these police were far more interested in capture than in discovering what activities eunuchs were actually engaged in on the outside. The fourth component of Qianlong’s system was the punishment meted out to errant eunuchs, the details of which changed over the course of the dynasty. In general, as in earlier reigns, minor infractions received corporal punishment in the form of blows of the bamboo. A more severe punishment was a period of incarceration with labor, generally cutting hay, which was done at imperial stables—first at Weng Shan, in what later became the Yihe Yuan, and later at Wudian, in the Nan Yuan imperial park. The more severe punishment was enslavement for a period of years, the location of which generally fit with the severity of the crime. For the most heinous of crimes, a eunuch might be sentenced to being beaten to death, usually in the presence of assembled eunuchs, to serve as a warning.

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Subsequent sections of this chapter examine each of these components in turn, showing their flaws as well as the ways in which eunuchs were able to exploit them. We begin, however, with a more fundamental question: How did the system identify and keep track of eunuchs in this palace world? Here lay the greatest flaw in Qianlong’s oversight of his eunuchs. T H E P R O B L E M O F I D E N T I F IC AT IO N

There were thousands of eunuchs in the emperor’s service—and as the previous chapters have described, many were scattered in duty stations throughout the capital and beyond. As the accounts in chapter 7 made evident, some had permission to come and go as they pleased, even from the palace, and some lived in the city on their own or with families. There was also considerable turnover: though many eunuchs worked at their jobs for decades, in any given year new eunuchs entered the system, and others left because of advanced age, illness, escape, or death. Some might even leave because they were returned to commoner status. Given all of these factors, a system for recording their identity and keeping track of them was essential to the operation of the imperial household bureaucracy. Accurate records would also be vital for disciplining eunuchs. This was most true in the case of repeat offenders: when a eunuch ran away and was captured, the Imperial Household Department had to know whether he had run away before. In this section, we observe a system that, as noted above, appeared far more effective and thorough than it really was. Unfortunately, eunuch personnel files themselves, even if extant, are not available to researchers. Other archival documents, however, clearly demonstrate that personnel files were haphazardly kept. So it was that an important prerequisite for overseeing eunuchs was not fulfilled. When Eunuchs Were Many, and Distinctive Names Were Few The greatest barrier to effective identification of eunuchs was the simple fact that so many of them had the same name, or variations of the same name. At any given time, there would be dozens of eunuchs working in the palace named Wang Jinxi or Zhang Jinzhong. In a case I investigate in the next chapter, almost all the eunuchs involved had a version of “loyalty” in their name, and most were named Jinzhong (“Entered in Loyalty”). There was a Zheng Jinzhong, a Li Jinzhong, a Tian Jinzhong, and a Zhang Zhong. To complicate matters further, the two chief eunuchs in the case were Liu Jinzhong and Zhao Jinzhong, and all but one of the men in the case had a common surname.1 To explain this phenomenon, one must understand some basic facts about early modern Chinese names generally. Many ordinary Chinese had surnames, but did not have formal given names. Instead, the number indicating their birth order in their family or extended family served as their given name. For example, a man’s

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name in his village might be “Wang Six.” While those casual names might be appropriate for the village world, they would have little meaning in the palace. When eunuchs entered palace service, therefore, they were formally registered under, and thereafter assumed, new names. These names followed the traditional pattern known today: a surname followed by a one- or two-character given name. The precise details of how eunuchs got their names varied. In some cases, they chose their own new names; in others, someone else named them. In a 1788 case of a young boy named Zhao Liuer (“Zhao Six”), the man who arranged his castration gave him the very common name Jiang Jinxi (“Entered-in-Happiness Jiang”), thus changing both surname and given name.2 The means of naming notwithstanding, the names were evidently drawn from a startlingly small pool of names that typically reflected either the aspirations of eunuchs for happiness and success in the palace, or the qualities they hoped to demonstrate as servants. As the above examples illustrate, quite often the first character of their given name was jin, “to enter,” referring to their entrance into the palace.3 Typical given names might be Jinzhong (“Entered in Loyalty”), Jinxi (“Entered in Happiness”), or Jinchao (“Entered the Dynasty/Government”). So small were the number of eunuch names that if eunuchs actually used them to speak to one another, confusion would have resulted. Instead, eunuchs used nicknames—often ones that reflected their seniority relative to one another.4 Ordinary, humble servant names affirmed eunuchs’ low status in the palace world; pretentious names would be inappropriate. By contrast, the emperor possessed as a privilege and mark of his illustrious status more names than anyone. None of these names was ordinary, and formally speaking or writing his personal name was forbidden. Scholar-officials, who were of high status, also had several names—their formal name, courtesy name, and pen name.5 Eunuchs, as those on the lowest ranks of the palace order, were not entitled to these markers of high status.6 Several sources, while not completely reliable, suggest the connection between eunuchs’ low status and their names. For example, it is said that Qianlong considered eunuchs and their names so insignificant that he planned to change all his eunuchs’ surnames to Wang, presumably to make their names easier to remember.7 A very small number of eunuchs did not have ordinary eunuch names. Those who had been given formal names by their parents might choose to keep those names. Generally speaking, eunuchs with uncommon names came from a higherstatus family background than other eunuchs. Su Peisheng, chief eunuch to Yongzheng and Qianlong whom we met in chapter 7, was such a eunuch. Other eunuchs were permitted to adopt unusual names by means of imperial grace. The best example was the Empress Dowager Cixi’s favorite eunuch, Li Lianying, who changed names several times in his career. His parents had bestowed upon him a formal birth name: Li Lingjie (“Alert Hero” Li). After castration, he first took a

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position in a princely household, where he went by Li Yingtai (“Brave and Peaceful” Li). When he entered palace service, where names like these would have been considered too grandiloquent, he adopted the extraordinarily common Li Jinxi (“Entered in Happiness” Li). It was only years later, when he had won Cixi’s favor, that she gave him the name Li Lianying (“Joins with Bravery” Li).8 With so many eunuchs having the same name, the Imperial Household Department had trouble differentiating them. Surnames offered little in the way of additional differentiation, in part because there were so few Chinese surnames. There was, moreover, no requirement that eunuchs keep their surnames, and they sometimes changed them, with or without explanation.9 The very limited number of eunuch names in the eighteenth century had a profound effect on the research in this book. Although vast numbers of Imperial Household Department documents dealing with eunuchs (if not their personnel files per se) survive, it is nearly impossible to follow individual eunuchs through the years.10 To make matters worse, the Imperial Household Department sometimes used homophonous characters in eunuchs’ names. A eunuch named Zhang Guotai, for example, might have the “tai” character written in several different ways, in different documents. I have been able to follow individual eunuch’s careers only in instances in which they had distinctive names, or became well known in other ways. As we will see, the Imperial Household Department officials were just as confused as the modern researcher. Other Ineffective Means of Tracking Identity The Imperial Household Department documents used other markers to keep track of eunuchs. In addition to names, the records used their home counties, ages, and ages at castration as forms of identification, and also listed the palace office where they worked. Each of these facts did little, however, to help in differentiating eunuchs. First, as noted in the introduction, eunuchs mostly came from just a handful of counties south of the capital, so the listing of a eunuch’s home county did little to differentiate him. Age, too, fostered a great deal of confusion, largely because eunuchs frequently lied about their age when they entered the palace, seeking to represent themselves as younger than their real age. Age at castration and home county were also self-reported, and eunuchs frequently falsely (or inaccurately) reported these as well. The archives contain many examples of documents that reveal the flaws in this aspect of the system. Even when it is possible to track particular eunuchs, one finds discrepancies that belie the precision the system seemed to require. A eunuch would frequently report his age, age at castration, home county, or other important details one way in one confession, but differently when caught for a subsequent offense.11 Sometimes extant documents of the Office of Palace Justice contain physical descriptions of eunuchs, but these seem hardly detailed enough to be of real use in

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identification.12 For example, in 1787 two eunuchs were reported as runaways. One was Liu Jinyu, aged fifty-two, of medium height and yellow complexion, with no pockmarks. The other was Zhang Defu, no age given, who was described as of medium height and yellow complexion.13 I have found only one instance in which a runaway eunuch’s description included what he was wearing when he fled, and it was from the Daoguang reign (1821–1850).14 Had they wished, Chinese officials could have done a much better job of tracking the identity of eunuchs. Fingerprints, for example, were well known in the Qing, and were used as a form of verifying identity among many people who came into contact with the bureaucracy. Rather than being printed and matched as they are today, the whorls of the fingertips were described by a written system. Rarely if ever were these descriptions used to aid in eunuch identification.15 Tattoos on the face were also widely used in identification of criminals, but I have found only one instance of its use in the case of a eunuch.16 The Imperial Household Department did not tattoo eunuchs, because it would not be seemly for a tattooed eunuch to be in service. A key reason why Qing officials did not put more effort into identifying and tracking particular eunuchs was the widespread but mistaken assumption that eunuchs were easy to spot because of the physical changes accompanying castration. The Jiaqing emperor revealed this misconception in an 1810 edict expressing his displeasure with the failure of the Fanyi police to capture fugitives.17 “Sometimes,” he wrote, “we receive reports of eunuchs running away. With their appearances and voices being so different, they are easy to tell apart, and should be even easier [than other fugitives] to capture.”18 In reality, eunuch biology was a lot more complicated than this generalization would accommodate. As discussed in the introduction and as is evident from the photographs of eunuchs included there, eunuch appearance varied tremendously. In part, this was because, as with all humans, factors such as genetics and diet create such differences. Yet other variation stemmed from a person’s age at castration and the number of years that had elapsed since he had been made a eunuch. Some eunuchs even grew beards. 19 These subtleties were lost, however, on the officials of the Imperial Household Department, who believed they knew a eunuch when they saw one. Furthermore, because eunuchs were thought to be easy to tell apart from the general populace, officials tended not to worry about identifying particular eunuchs. Eunuchs, they believed, could effectively never blend into society. The Imperial Household Department thus essentially abandoned the challenges of identifying and tracking particular eunuchs, though they never quite gave up the pretension of precision. If eunuchs appeared to the staff of the Imperial Household Department as an undifferentiated mass, there were people who could identify eunuchs with great precision: their individual supervisory eunuchs. This ability was an essential

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element of the power of the supervisory eunuchs. These supervisors worked closely and often lived with their subordinates. Among themselves they used not the formal names eunuchs received when they entered palace service, but, as suggested above, nicknames and other informal terms that often mirrored the hierarchical and familiar language of the family. In the day-to-day running of the palace, and in cases of wrongdoing, the Imperial Household Department turned to supervisory eunuchs for their intimate knowledge of the eunuchs in their charge. Supervisors who were complicit with their underlings, moreover, could readily cover for their subordinates. Because the Imperial Household Department lacked the will to identify them clearly, and because they frequently colluded with their supervisors, eunuchs could enjoy considerable freedom. Fading into the group with their commonplace names, they took their low status and others’ clichéd beliefs about themselves and turned them to their own advantage. E U N U C H OV E R SIG H T A N D I M P E R IA L R E A S SU R A N C E : C A SE F I L E S O F T H E O F F IC E O F PA L AC E J U ST IC E , O R SH E N X I N G SI

The Shenxing Si, or Office of Palace Justice—the first component of Qianlong’s system (briefly introduced in chapter 3)—was responsible for investigating and recommending appropriate punishments for eunuch transgressions. Few sources describe the Shenxing Si directly. We know that it was formed in the Shunzhi period, when it was known as the Shangfang Si (Directorate of Imperial Manufactories), a name that came from a Ming dynasty office responsible for the making of utensils for imperial use.20 The Kangxi emperor changed its name to the Shenxing Si in 1677, probably as part of his general desire to dissociate Qing palace institutions from their Ming antecedents, but perhaps also to bring its name more in line with its function.21 It is likely the Shenxing Si grew steadily, reaching a highly developed form by the Qianlong period, when it was headed by two directors (langzhong), four vice-directors (yuanwai lang), and one manager (zhushi). The staff consisted of twenty clerks (bithesi), some competent in Manchu as well as Chinese.22 We also know that its offices were located on the western side of the Forbidden City, near the Xihua Gate.23 The Qing official Zhaolian, a Manchu noble descended from Nurhaci who was well known as an astute and candid observer of Qing life, offers the best description of the Shenxing Si as it existed in Qianlong’s (and Jiaqing’s) time. He notes that its duty was to investigate crimes in the imperial household that were committed by eunuchs and sula (unemployed Manchu banner personnel).24 If the crimes were relatively minor, officials of this office would come to a recommendation by investigating and analyzing the case, adhering to the provisions

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of the Qing code where applicable. For more serious crimes, they would turn the case over to the Board of Punishments (Xing Bu). If the crime pertained to the imperial family, the emperor’s permission would be sought before witnesses were interrogated.25 With the benefit of the Qing archives, it is possible to further flesh out the role of the Office of Palace Justice. Zhaolian was correct in asserting that the office’s area of sole jurisdiction was limited to cases that were relatively minor (i.e., punished by one hundred strokes or less).26 In practice, however, the office dealt with the full range of eunuch crimes, including, as mentioned above, leaving the palace without authorization and returning late from approved leave (both of which were classified as “running away”), theft, fighting, and gross negligence. Although major crimes (usually involving murder) were sent to the Board of Punishments for investigation, they were reported back to the Office of Palace Justice, which compiled case reports and recommended a disposition to the emperor. Case reports began with a statement of the crime, gave a brief summary of how the investigation proceeded, and then included the confessions of the accused as well as the statements of witnesses and, if relevant, of a coroner (who examined both corpses and the bodies of the injured). The case reports concluded with a recommended disposition, and were presented by the chief ministers of the Imperial Household Department (usually cosigned by other senior officials) to the emperor, in the form of an Imperial Household Department memorial (Neiwu fu zouan). Eunuchs would read the document aloud. According to staff members at the First Historical Archives in Beijing, the emperor would speak a response in Chinese or Manchu, which eunuchs would then record.27 Those case reports that survive in large numbers in the Qing archives are an essential source for this study. They are written in a colloquial, first-person language. Eunuchs confess to the circumstances that led them to commit their crimes, and in the process they offer uniquely detailed accounts of palace life. The case of the eunuch Luo Sigui is one example. According to his 1754 confession,  Luo was a twenty-one-year-old eunuch, castrated the year before and assigned to serve at the Office of Sacrifices (Jishen fang). He performed general maintenance duties and prepared sacrificial animals and wines. He married before he became a eunuch, and his wife and son lived outside the Xihua Gate. He began his confession: In July 1754 I requested leave, and when I arrived home I found that my wife’s brother was also at my house. He and my wife were engaged in small talk, so I just went inside to see my mother. The next month, I again received leave, and when I got home my mother said to me: “Your wife’s brother came and took your wife back to their village, and they left your son here.” I got very angry when I heard this. Since I am a eunuch, I could not go to the village to look for her. Left with no alternative, I asked other people to raise my three-year-old son.

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The departure of his wife and her abandonment of their son provided the key ingredients in Luo’s troubles, but he went on to describe the alleged crime: Wang De [another eunuch], who works in the same office as me, visited my home frequently and knew all the secrets of my family. He often reminded me of this, and teased me. I hated him very much and often got muddle-headed because of my seething anger. On October 17, 1754, I asked for leave to collect my salary, and arrived at my home. Again, I found Wang De there, visiting my home so that my mother could iron his clothes. I got very angry when I thought of how he teased me about the gossip regarding my wife, so I threw him out and told my mother that she should not expect me to come back home again. After I reentered the Xihua Gate, I walked to a vacant area north of the imperial pharmacy [yaofang]. Filled with anger, I cut my throat twice with the small knife I carried but stopped immediately because of the pain. . . . Since I hate Wang De so much, I said it was he who attacked me with the knife.

When confronted with the evidence, provided by a coroner’s investigation, that the wound was self-inflicted, Luo Sigui quickly confessed. In the end, Luo received the punishment given to most eunuchs who attempted suicide: he was sentenced to cut hay for life. Wang De was also punished for humiliating Luo Sigui: he was sentenced to eighty blows, followed by reassignment to hard labor outside the palace.28 The historian must be wary of taking all the eunuch confessions at face value. Luo Sigui’s allegations against Wang De were serious, and if proven would have resulted in Wang being put to death. Given the gravity of the circumstances, the Office of Palace Justice was obliged to investigate thoroughly and involve the services of a coroner. Most of the eunuch confessions, which might be termed routine, are less detailed. These less-detailed confessions are most remarkable for their formulaic qualities. In case after case, one reads of eunuchs who explain their behavior using a strikingly small repertoire of excuses. If they ran from the palace, it was because they had made a mistake at their jobs and feared that their supervisory eunuch would beat them, or because they could not get along with a fellow eunuch; or they missed a parent and, unable to receive authorization to leave, and in a fit of confusion, simply ran from the palace. If they overstayed their leave, it was often because they were shopping and had lost track of the time, or had been drinking and were afraid to return and be found drunk by their supervisors. Often eunuchs not only used the same excuses, but also used exactly the same language in deploying them. Identical or nearly identical expressions appear in other parts of their confessions. The confessing eunuch invariably offered the reassurance “I am not concealing any other facts and was not a bandit while on the outside,” and accounted for time away from the palace by saying, “I floated around, wandering on the streets by day and taking shelter in dilapidated temples at night.” Surrounding the

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formulaic statements are specific details, which often provide key bits of information about eunuch life in the palace and capital generally. Given how little we know about the operation of the Office of Palace Justice, it is difficult to explain the formulaic nature of the confessions with certainty. One possibility is that these confessions were the product of eunuchs’ shared wisdom about which excuses would be best received by their interrogators. My own sense is that eunuchs’ shared wisdom played a role, especially when it came to the repertoire of excuses deployed. I also believe, however, that the interrogators themselves played an important role, making the disparate elements of the case, with its various confessions, conform to a single narrative of events. These interrogators likely asked eunuchs questions, and then wove their responses together. Though the result was a compelling narrative in colloquial Chinese, it should not be taken as a verbatim transcript of what the eunuch or witnesses said. One strong piece of evidence that these confessions were constructed and not simply transcribed may be found in the occasional “joint confessions” that appear in the case reports. In those, testimony of two witnesses who observed the transgression is woven together into a single witnesses narrative, using “we” instead of “I.” One also occasionally finds subsequent emendations of confessions that serve to make the account more consistent.29 Legalistic in tone, the case reports are reminiscent of memorials produced elsewhere in the Qing bureaucracy—in particular, the Board of Punishments’ routine memorials (xingke tiben). Those documents, which have been used extensively in the writing of Qing social history, were compiled for capital cases, which had to be reviewed in Beijing. The similarity between the case reports and xingke tiben was likely intentional: their legalistic and decisive style, with first-person confessions quoted in their entirety, were meant to lend a sense of judicial authority to the proceedings.30 The core message of the eunuch confessions, and of the case reports generally, is that of reassurance. The peace of the palace may have been broken, and a crime committed, but the truth has been extracted from those involved, the guilty punished, and order restored. The case reports almost never contain loose ends, nor do they ever expose wide-scale wrongdoing within the palace. Every detail is sewn up for Qianlong’s benefit, so he can be reassured that all is well in his palace, and that he has held the ancient line against eunuch encroachment into imperial power. Although the tone of the reports is formal and legalistic, he heard them in an informal setting. One source notes that eunuchs read the case reports to him while he took his meals.31 The formulaic quality of the eunuch case reports served to bolster their reassuring quality. Taken together, they construct an identity for the eighteenth-century eunuch. If eunuchs ran from the palace, it was only because they suffered from the personality traits generally ascribed to eunuchs: they were timid, afraid of being beaten, muddleheaded. They were careless men who lost track of the time when

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they were clothes shopping, or easily succumbed to drunken binges. They were easy to anger and nursed grudges over petty issues. They were sentimental, and ran from the palace because they missed their mothers. In sum, they mirrored the yin image of them described in chapter 1. In the many eunuch case files I have read, rarely does a eunuch admit involvement in the business enterprises of which we knew they were a part. Never do they mention, for example, having to visit a pawnshop in which they held a financial interest. That eunuchs were complicit in this depiction of themselves is evident from the few case reports in which they admit concealing wrongdoing by choosing from the repertoire of standard, clichéd excuses. In December 1782, when the eunuch-monk Sun Delu, who worked in the Wall of Sravasti, the Indian Buddhist temple at the Yuanming Yuan, was unable to bear the tough work and wanted to see his wife, he used the excuse of going out to buy clothes.32 Similarly, when very late in the Qianlong reign the thirty-one-year-old eunuch Liu Jin’an wanted to leave the palace to collect his gambling winnings, he used the excuse that he missed his mother and was going to see her.33 Even when a fugitive eunuch captured far from home claimed that he had been missing his mother, the investigators never challenged his explanation as dubious.34 THE EUNUCH HIERARCHY

As we previously noted, Qianlong declared himself to be following the established rule that held emperors personally responsible for watching over the affairs of their household. To prove the point, he would occasionally ostentatiously punish eunuchs for relatively minor infractions, as a way of reminding his household that he was a strict disciplinarian. It is those cases that found their way into A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, and that earned Qianlong his reputation for being tough on eunuchs. We also observed that Qianlong was forced, as a practical matter, to continue and expand his grandfather Kangxi’s system for delegating strict supervision. At the top of the eunuch hierarchy were the chief eunuchs (zongguan taijian), generally ten in number. Qianlong had redefined the position. Gone were the days in which these men were imperial advisers and senior ministers. Instead, chief eunuchs, were to be the senior managers of the imperial household, responsible for overseeing their subordinates. The emperor held his chief eunuchs ultimately responsible for eunuch wrongdoing. When rank-and-file eunuchs committed crimes and were caught, punishments would generally be meted out not only to the offenders, but also, as noted in some of the previously cited cases, to the supervisory and chief eunuchs, who had failed to supervise the palace properly. Often, no particular evidence of poor supervision was required. Instead, the fact that ordinary eunuchs had committed

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a crime was proof enough that their supervisors were not doing their jobs. In the case of the chief eunuchs, punishment was generally limited to loss of salary. If the crime was severe enough, they might lose salary for one year or more.35 Qianlong occasionally used harsh punishment of his chief eunuchs to reassert that he was a tough manager of eunuchs generally. In 1779, for example, he learned that the chief eunuchs of the Yuanming Yuan indiscriminately sent all silk decorations used in potted plants and decorative bonsai scenes back to the imperial workshops for repair, instead of carefully sorting through them to see which ones actually required repair. A fine of a year’s salary, the norm in such instances, was deemed insufficient to punish such reckless conduct; the three accused men were each fined a year and a half ’s salary.36 Given the pressure chief eunuchs were under to keep peace and security in the palace, one might think that their tendency would be to collude with their subordinates to keep things from the emperor. Such collusion was, after all, widespread among Qianlong’s senior officials, and the emperor complained about it with great regularity. It also might be presumed that eunuchs, who shared the experience of castration, would feel a bond with one another that trumped their loyalty to the emperor. I have seen rather little evidence of such collusion, and even less of a sense of vertical bonding among eunuchs. There were occasional references to chief eunuchs waiting too long to report particular crimes, but even in these cases there were no allegations of collusion.37 For the most part, the chief eunuchs were men who stood apart from their subordinates. The chief eunuchs had high-ranking status within the palace. As men who sat at the apex of the eunuch hierarchy, with direct access to the emperor, they were also powerful. Once they became involved in investigating a matter, it had irreversibly entered the system and would be reviewed by the chief ministers of the imperial household. The chief eunuchs could be in serious trouble if they concealed things, either from those ministers or from the emperor himself. As we will see shortly, this form of power was very different from that held by the supervisory eunuchs. In practice, the chief eunuchs had little to do with the lives of ordinary eunuchs, and instead had a wide range of higher-level obligations. They were responsible for making duty assignments for supervisory eunuchs, and for promoting rank-andfile eunuchs to the rank of supervisory eunuch. It was through the chief eunuchs that rank-and-file eunuchs achieved their formal postings and reassignments following return from punishment. Rare indeed was the ordinary eunuch who had the courage to appeal directly to a chief eunuch. One who did was the eunuch Zhang Zhong, a runaway who hid outside a palace gate for days, hoping to see a chief eunuch from whom he could beg mercy. When none appeared, he reentered the palace to accept his fate.38 Chief eunuchs were responsible for disseminating the content of imperial edicts to the supervisory eunuchs, who, in turn, were to

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report them to the rank and file. The chief eunuchs were also the go-to people when there was something about the palace or its operation that the emperor was unhappy with or wished to have changed. Chief eunuchs also bore some responsibility for others in the palace besides eunuchs. One such group was the palace maids. Just as chief eunuchs could be punished for failing to report the suicide of a eunuch, they could also be punished for failing to report the suicide—or attempted suicide—of a palace maid.39 Notwithstanding the high status of the chief eunuchs, the supervisory eunuchs (shouling taijian) are more central to our story. These middle-level managers exercised an immense amount of informal power over the rank-and-file eunuchs, and in the palace generally. They were the keys to the doors of new eunuch opportunity created in the eighteenth century, because they controlled the freedoms available to the thousands of eunuchs in the emperor’s employ. With a permissive supervisory eunuch, an ordinary eunuch could come and go from the palace freely, or could even live outside the palace and return when his duties required it. Since the power of supervisory eunuchs in the day-to-day running of the palace was almost unfettered, they could make the lives of their subordinates better than average or a living hell. To appreciate the role of the supervisory eunuch, we must first understand the circumstances in which most eunuchs lived and worked. In most duty stations inside and outside the palaces, eunuchs were divided into small groups of fewer than ten men, with each of these small groups overseen by a supervisory eunuch. As mentioned above, in addition to working together, these men quite often lived together, with the supervisory eunuch and his subordinates (which could include an assistant supervisory eunuch) sharing a room or rooms. The atmosphere in these small groups was intense, with the same group of people working, living, and cooking together, all under the watchful eye of the supervisory eunuch. Squabbles were commonplace, and eunuchs sometimes competed to win the supervisory eunuch over to their side. Only when things boiled over into murder or suicide (or attempts thereof) did the chief eunuchs, and the formal system of investigation, come into play. In most ordinary cases, eunuchs played out these domestic dramas without the chief eunuch finding out, and consequently without these affairs entering the historical record. Such drama was evident, for example, in 1746, when two eunuchs fought fiercely over seemingly minor issues. These two men lived with their supervisory eunuch in a small room underneath the Cining Gong. This palace was the traditional residence of the empress dowager, but at the time these incidents took place it was likely being used for sacrifices. The older eunuch was named Dong Junfu, and the younger eunuch with whom he quarreled was a Lu Chengwen. According to Dong, he became angry with Lu, who—in a fit of pique when he was hungry— called Dong by his personal name rather than observing the proper formality of

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older and younger. When Lu told his side of the story, he claimed that Dong had unjustifiably given him a hard time for eating more than his fair share of food. The power to resolve the matter lay with the discretion of the supervisory eunuch. He took the younger eunuch’s side, and also criticized Dong for having the smell of liquor on his breath. Dong, feeling misjudged (he claimed to have had only two drinks the night before), took a knife to his own throat and attempted suicide.40 The power of the supervisory eunuch was augmented by the fact that new eunuchs often quite literally grew up under his influence and he therefore loomed especially large in their lives. Newly admitted eunuchs were assigned to a group after doing a training stint in the Palace Cleaning Office (Dasao chu), which, as discussed in the previous chapter, was the usual duty assignment for a newly entered eunuch. Supervisory eunuchs in that office assessed his strengths and weaknesses, and planned his more permanent duty assignment, which they cleared with the chief eunuchs. Once the young eunuch was assigned to the smaller group, he would learn his craft under the supervisory eunuch, with whom he worked and lived. Years would go by, with eunuchs often remaining at the same post. Supervisory eunuchs generally put their subordinates under intense pressure, causing eunuchs often to claim, as suggested above, that they ran away because they were bad at learning their craft and feared the wrath of their supervisory eunuch. Such was the case with Li Rui, a twenty-one-year-old eunuch who had spent five years studying to be a lama-eunuch in the Yong’an Si, a temple on the grounds of what is now Beihai park. By his own account, Li was generally slowwitted, so try as he might, he never became adept at chanting the sutras. His supervisory eunuch beat him often, and finally, unable to endure any more drubbing, he escaped to the area outside the Chaoyang Gate.41 Sometimes, supervisory eunuchs drove the men and boys under them to suicide. In 1767, the eunuch Zheng Zhaolin was learning to play the drum under the tutelage of his teacher and supervisory eunuch, Gao Chaofeng. The two worked in the Qin’an Dian, a Daoist temple, where they likely provided music to accompany the emperor’s annual New Year ritual prayers to the deity Xuantian Shangdi. Zheng, who was twelve sui, was having difficulty learning the drum, and his exasperated teacher would grab his drum mallet and beat him with it. Since the two lived together, the pressure was intense. One night, Zheng ate too much fruit and soiled his pants. Terrified of what Gao would do, he waited until morning, and when he went outside to perform his morning chore of disposing of the night soil, he threw himself down a well.42 The largest and most important area of these eunuchs’ supervisory discretion was the authority to grant or deny leave. In the twelfth year of his reign, Qianlong reminded his eunuchs that their leaves had to be approved by a chief eunuch.43 In

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practice, however, it was supervisory eunuchs who granted them permission, and indeed even soon after this reminder, eunuchs were noting in their confessions that permission to depart the palace had been granted to them by their supervisory eunuchs.44 Often, eunuchs were granted leave just for the day, but furloughs could also be lengthy, with visits to home areas stretching up to one month or several.45 The supervisory eunuchs’ discretion was so great that there were, in practice, no standard criteria for a valid reason for requesting leave. In some instances, they granted leave for relatively minor reasons; in others, they denied leave for major life events, such as the grave illness or even death of a parent. Supervisory discretion continued as a constant feature of palace management, despite periodic attempts to standardize the rules. Sometimes, supervisory eunuchs were so strict that their subordinates would not even dare to ask for leave.46 As might be expected, gifts and cash payments to the supervisory eunuch were sometimes a prerequisite to obtaining leave.47 The power of the supervisory eunuch emanated, in large part, from its informal nature, and from his discretion over whether to handle wrongdoing by reporting it to his chief eunuch. In theory, supervisory eunuchs had to report all instances of wrongdoing to their superiors. In practice, however, this rule was greatly ignored, and this was a key ingredient of the supervisory eunuch’s power. As we will see, if a eunuch ran from the palace, or overstayed his leave, his supervisory eunuch could send someone to fetch him and then decide whether and how to punish him when he returned.48 The supervisor might choose to report the escape to the chief eunuch, which, as mentioned above, would trigger an investigation and formal punishment. Even relatively serious crimes, such as theft of a fellow eunuch’s belongings, might be handled without report to the chief eunuchs. For example, when the eunuch Wang Jinxi noticed that his shirt was missing and believed the eunuch Lin Jinfu to be responsible, he first reported the crime to his supervisory eunuch, Dong Liangbi. Dong questioned Lin, finally getting him to admit that he had stolen and pawned the shirt. It was only after Lin failed to produce the pawn ticket so that the shirt could be redeemed and returned to Wang that the supervisory eunuch chose to report the matter to the chief eunuch.49 Dealing with runaway eunuchs could be a matter of a supervisory eunuch’s discretion if he thought he could persuade the fugitive to return. In a 1756 case, for example, the eunuch Wang Jinxiang learned that his supervisory eunuch intended to beat him for quarrelling with a fellow eunuch. Unwilling to endure the thrashing, he ran from the palace and hid outside. Rather than reporting the runaway to the chief eunuchs, his supervisor called him back, locked him up, and once again planned to beat him. It was only after Wang broke the locks and ran away again that his supervisor reported the escape to the chief eunuchs.50 Similarly, in a 1774

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case, a supervisor sent one of his subordinates to the home of a runaway eunuch to reassure the eunuch that there was nothing wrong and that he should return. In the end, the case was handed over to the chief eunuchs, largely because the supervisor determined that his subordinate had stolen a coat from another eunuch.51 Supervisory eunuchs often brutally beat their underlings; the full extent of their violence fully entered the historical record only when death resulted. This is abundantly clear from an event that occurred in September 1767, when the eunuch Wang Xilu died from injuries received at the hands of his supervisory eunuch. Wang was part of a group of six eunuchs who lived with their supervisory eunuch in a room in the Yuanming Yuan. On the morning of August 21, 1767, the eunuchs went out for guard duty as usual, returning to their room later that day to have lunch together. When Wang Xilu alone apparently became drunk after the meal, one of his fellow eunuchs agreed to take over his shift. Unhappy with the situation, the supervisory eunuch ordered that Wang be brought before him for a beating. While he lay on the ground, the supervisor struck him repeatedly. When Wang could bear it no more and crawled up to beg for mercy, his supervisor beat him on the arms, and responded that since he had failed to remain still during the beating, the blows must begin anew. The supervisor continued the assault until at last two of Wang’s fellow eunuchs could stand the sight no more and begged the supervisor to stop. For the next two days, Wang struggled to carry out his duties, although his fellow eunuchs noticed that he wasn’t eating. He babbled through the nights, apparently in some sort of delirium. His supervisor determined that he should probably be sent home to recuperate, so he hired a rickshaw driver and told one of his subordinate eunuchs to accompany Wang to his home. The rickshaw driver, after balking at the request to transport the obviously sick and immobile eunuch, was finally convinced by a pleading eunuch to take the eunuch home. Wang died along the way, not long after a stop at Shuangguan Di Miao, a small temple in the western part of the city. When the coroner examined the body, he quickly determined that the supervisory eunuch had caused the death. There were gashes all over the back of the dead eunuch’s body, from his shoulders to his legs. His arms and elbows showed the defensive wounds from when he had crawled up to beg for mercy. His left buttock had been beaten so raw that the coroner was unable to measure the wounds. Officials from the Imperial Household Department ruled that the supervisory eunuch had acted correctly in beating eunuch Wang, but the beating had been excessive, and blows had been delivered to especially vulnerable parts of the body. The supervisor was consequently punished with forty days in the cangue followed by one hundred lashes, and transfer to a new position outside the palace. In addition, he was required to pay ten taels in burial expenses to the deceased eunuch’s family.52 Almost certainly, none of his brutality would have come to light, if eunuch Wang had survived.53

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With so much discretionary power at their disposal, many supervisory eunuchs tended to be bullies. They bullied not only the eunuchs in their charge, but also others in the palace who came to deal with them. Among the supervisory eunuchs were famous bullies such as Fan Keduan, who worked in the kennels at the Yuanming Yuan. Known to most as Tiger Fan, he was famous for losing his temper at whoever came to see him.54 Cases of serious bullying came to the attention of the Imperial Household Department investigators, but we can easily view them as extreme examples of a commonplace power dynamic. In 1743, for example, a supervisory eunuch by the name of Liu Yi was found guilty of an extraordinary number of crimes, which resulted in a death sentence. Liu had worked in the Sizhi Shi, or Office of the Imperial Wardrobe, which was known to be a lucrative posting, since the eunuchs who worked there were responsible for importing clothes and fabric into the palace. The supervisory eunuch Liu Yi, however, went far beyond the gifts and tips that were acceptable, and skimmed money and fabric, which he sold. In some ways he took good care of the eunuchs in his charge, sharing his ill-gotten gains with them (perhaps as a way of ensuring their silence). He also made them work for his benefit, however, forcing them to build furniture for him and even a coffin for his father. He was part of a network of connections that included Manchu officials and people in his hometown with whom he had business dealings. Liu went to great lengths to conceal his wrongdoing, colluding with three other supervisory eunuchs. When a rank-and-file eunuch named Li Peishi finally threatened to expose his misconduct, he framed him and then had him dismissed.55 While supervisory eunuchs like Liu Yi were in a position to bring subordinate eunuchs into service of their own corruption, supervisors could also be essential allies for their subordinates who wanted to carry out business on the outside. This was in large measure because of the supervisors’ discretionary power to permit leaves, but it was also because they controlled virtually all aspects of a subordinate eunuch’s life. They could allow a eunuch to conduct business or prevent it, by permitting or denying him leave from duty to meet a visitor at the Xihua Gate, where eunuchs’ relatives and friends came to bring messages. With a supervisor’s support, moreover, a eunuch could find himself with lighter service obligations, or even seconded to a post in another palace. Supervisory eunuchs were truly among the most influential people in the palace world. T H E I N N E R P O L IC E BU R E AU, O R FA N Y I C H U

The Office of Palace Justice had its own police force, whose primary duty was to catch eunuchs who had run away or committed other crimes. Briefly introduced in chapter 6, the force was known as the Fanyi Chu—a compound, without a clear etymology, that could be roughly translated as “Inner Police Bureau.” The name

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dates to the Ming dynasty, when it referred to capital police forces that operated at the behest of the emperor. Even in the relatively calm days of the early Ming dynasty, the Fanyi police were known for their corruption and harsh tactics. They hired private thugs, which allowed them to evade government oversight. They staked out temples surrounding the homes of the criminals they were sent to arrest, which they called “driving the piles.” When they entered the criminals’ homes but could not find the accused, they used torture to extract information, which they called “pressing the wine.” Late in the Ming, when the government descended into factional infighting and eunuchs dominated, the Fanyi police became associated with the notorious Eastern Depot, which carried out torture and murder. For good reason, the ordinary people came to fear them.56 After Yongzheng’s resurrection of the Fanyi police, the bureau was separated into two distinct parts.57 One part was subordinate to the Shenxing Si; the other was subordinate to the Bujuntong (Office of the Captain-General of the Gendarmerie),58 the police unit that guarded the city gates. In principle, the Shenxing Si’s Fanyi dealt with wrongdoings by palace personnel, and for this reason they were referred to as “inner managers”; the Bujuntong Fanyi, whose jurisdiction fell outside the palace, were “outer managers.”59 In reality, both police units were frequently involved with the capture of miscreant eunuchs. Sometimes, this was because particular cases might involve both eunuchs and non-eunuchs.60 In others, it was simply that, as Alison Dray-Novey has written, police supervision in imperial Beijing was intentionally “complex, redundant, and flexible.”61 In 1749, for example, when the eunuch Lü He ran from the palace, the Imperial Household Department not only sent its own Fanyi police in pursuit, but also asked the commander of the Bujuntong to send his Fanyi. The department also asked for assistance from the Censorate and the Board of Punishments.62 By the start of the Qianlong reign, the Fanyi police had once again become corrupt. In 1736, the censor Liu Wulong made the newly enthroned emperor aware of the corruption that persisted among the members of the Fanyi police force appended to the Bujuntong. Perhaps most notoriously, the Bujuntong continued to use hired thugs in carrying out its operations, which greatly harmed the people. He proposed that Fanyi police officers be required to obtain licenses identifying themselves in order to arrest suspects. To prevent a wide range of abuses, the Fanyi police were prohibited from conducting interrogations when alone with their suspects.63 Qianlong’s own investigation of the matter exposed the panoply of Fanyi abuses. All Fanyi, he said, were simply no better than bandits, using hired thugs in their operations, framing suspects, accepting bribes, and blackmailing the innocent. In the process, they had sown discord and brought harm to ordinary people. His father, he said, had reformed the Fanyi, but they had once again fallen into their old ways. In fact, they had stooped to new lows. He learned that Fanyi had begun assigning themselves to particular stations in the Six Boards, the central arms of

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government, so that they could spy on government officials. Qianlong found this “abominable in the extreme.” The job of the Fanyi, he wrote, had always been to catch thieves, runaways, and gamblers. How could they presume to spy on high officials so that they could learn their strong and weak points? He ordered that all use of hired thugs was to cease. He also invited any ordinary person who was harmed by the Fanyi to come personally to the Censorate or the Board of Punishments so that the guilty could be punished.64 Following Qianlong’s pronouncements, several rules regarding the Fanyi were enshrined in the Qing legal code. First, Fanyi were not permitted to use excessive force or violence in carrying out their operations. If the people they pursued or interrogated died, they were liable for murder.65 Second, when Fanyi captured criminals, they were required to turn them over to the proper office immediately, rather than keep them in custody with the intent to blackmail them. Those who violated this provision would be punished under the substatute governing the acceptance of bribes.66 Third, there was an explicit ban on the use of hired thugs, and only legitimate members of the Fanyi police force would be given the certificates that allowed them to arrest suspects.67 One way in which Fanyi sought to circumvent the rule about hired thugs was by changing the euphemism they used when referring to these men. Qianlong was, however, not fooled by the name change. Yet despite his reforms, Fanyi police abuses continued. In one case that transpired during the first decade of his reign, Fanyi police were sent to the home of a female commoner to search for illegal ginseng. An informer named He San had led them there, and participated in the interrogation. An argument ensued, and He San began beating the woman to find the hidden ginseng. She was mortally wounded by He San’s blows, and died a few days later. Investigation revealed not only that the woman had no ginseng in her house, but also that He San had framed her for the crime.68 In this case, the “informer” was nothing other than a hired thug, harming the accused with the expectation of avoiding punishment. In 1742, the high official Šuhede raised the problem of Fanyi abuses and called for reform. He noted frequent abuses in the system of official credentials, by which the Fanyi demonstrated they had the authority to arrest suspects. Many of them, he said, had a ready supply of such credentials in their possession, which they could use whenever they were needed. In addition, he said, Fanyi police would sometimes arrest others besides the accused, such as their concubines, without the proper credentials. They also misused physical punishments, tortured the innocent, and even entered the private apartments of concubines and physically abused them.69 Flagrant instances of bribery were also recorded. In 1774, the Fanyi policeman Zhang Xingye hosted a party in honor of his seventeen-year-old daughter, who was engaged to be married. Among those invited were local dignitaries (such as the magistrate of Wanping County), all of whom gave the young woman gifts of

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silver. Fulong’an, who reported the case to the emperor, found the gifts to be thinly veiled bribes, and also noted that Fanyi police should not be consorting with members of the officialdom.70 In truth, the Fanyi policemen and their headmen were little more than bounty hunters, because they were paid per capita following the capture of miscreants. There were standard bounties for many categories of offenders. In the beginning of his reign, Qianlong paid the Fanyi five taels per captured runaway eunuch, which was shared between the Fanyi policeman and his supervising headman; he later doubled that amount to ten taels.71 In cases in which eunuchs were guilty of other criminal acts, the amount could be higher. In the fifth year of his reign, Fanyi received large rewards for capturing a eunuch associated with the Yongzheng-era succession controversy. The eunuch Gao Jinchao, who had faithfully served Sishe, was caught for concealing his master’s money. The Fanyi police who captured him were rewarded with four hundred taels. The same document reports that a staggering two thousand taels was paid for the apprehension of Liu Yi, a family member of eunuch Li Yu, who had likewise hidden his master’s money.72 Given the way in which their payments were structured, the Fanyi put all their emphasis on finding the escapee. It was not in their interest, nor was it their role, to become involved in the investigation of crime: as described earlier, that task fell to the officials in the Office of Palace Justice. When Fanyi carried out interrogations, it was only to learn the whereabouts of the criminals they were pursuing, and if those interrogations grew harsh, it was in their interest to resort to hired thugs to extract information—the problem whose persistence Qianlong noted. In the eyes of one observer, the Fanyi police were astonishingly good at their jobs. G. Carter Stent, a nineteenth-century visitor to China, who wrote an oft-cited article on Chinese eunuchs, described Fanyi thus: “The men composing this force are not eunuchs themselves, but know all the eunuchs of the palace; and it is rare that one of them succeeds in escaping, for no sooner is the flight of one reported, than the members of the force—(who are adepts at disguises, and may be considered detectives) spread themselves all over the city, and speedily recapture the deserter.”73 Unfortunately, scant documentation survives on the success rate of the Fanyi police. Only the eunuchs who were captured or who turned themselves in— about whom the chief ministers memorialized the emperor with a proposed punishment—were recorded. Because the chief eunuchs’ memorials to the Imperial Household Department do not survive, there is thus no large written record of the total number of runaways and captures. Just one document notes that from February 1760 until February 1769, the Fanyi captured a total of seventy-four runaway eunuchs. It also notes that in this same period twenty eunuchs had evaded capture; this would yield a capture rate of 78 percent.74 There is no mention of eunuchs who escaped but then reentered of their own volition.

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Evidence from the Office of Palace Justice case reports allows us to piece together a picture of how the Fanyi police accomplished their mission. They operated on the assumption that when most eunuchs escaped, the first place they ran to was their family home.75 Because many Qianlong-era eunuchs moved their families to nearby Wanping County, it was easy enough for the Fanyi police to pay a visit to the family. If the eunuch fled to a home that was in one of the eunuchproducing counties to the south of the capital, they would travel there in search of him, although in that case they cooperated with local officials.76 In most cases I have found of eunuchs captured elsewhere than home, the Fanyi’s success may be attributed to the fact that those who harbored the eunuchs turned them in out of fear. The case reports also offer many examples of eunuchs who were turned in by their relations. In 1746, for example, cousins of the runaway eunuch Lü He turned him in because they feared they would be prosecuted for harboring an escaped eunuch.77 In those instances in which eunuchs floated about rather than running home, they were occasionally caught through being spotted on the street. In some cases, the eunuchs’ physical attributes, as discussed in the introduction to this chapter, played a clear role. They might, for example, be spotted by their lanky builds. In many other cases, as noted above, eunuchs passed unnoticed, and marks of biology would not provide a clue for the Fanyi police. Before leaving the subject of the Fanyi police, we need to raise at least one other possibility: that the well-known corruption of these men might have also extended to their dealings with eunuchs. After all, Fanyi policemen received five (and later ten) taels for bringing in an escaped eunuch. It is possible that some eunuchs were able to bribe the police for much larger sums so that they would be allowed to remain on the outside. Certainly, a Fanyi policeman who never brought in escaped eunuchs would lose his job. On the other hand, it seems likely that these men occasionally looked the other way in return for a hefty bribe. It is also possible that Fanyi police occasionally allowed eunuchs to turn themselves in, in return for a payment. The main problem with the government’s reliance on the Fanyi police to expose eunuch misdoing, however, was that these policemen, essentially bounty hunters, were not investigators tasked with understanding what palace eunuchs were up to. The police arm of the Imperial Household Department thus had no incentive to investigate the world of Qianlong’s eunuchs’ wrongdoing, and that world remained obscure to palace officials and Qianlong himself. P U N I SH M E N T S

The concluding sections of all case reports included proposed punishments for the miscreant eunuchs. The emperor would approve of the proposed sentence, or

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modify it. As noted above, there were sentencing standards for most typical eunuch offenses: running away, theft, brawling, gambling, wielding a knife within the palace gates, and attempting suicide. In the case of more serious crimes, reference was made to the Qing legal code to determine a sentence. As noted in chapter 4, Kangxi established the basic framework for eunuch punishments, and Qianlong, like his father, Yongzheng, before him, followed this framework. He expanded the range of punishments (from light bamboo blows to cutting hay at Weng Shan), however, to include enslavement, generally to a soldier or garrison. The pattern of eunuch punishment appeared much harsher on the surface than it was in reality. There were certainly cases in which a crime was dealt with harshly; the perpetrator might even be sentenced to the most severe of penalties, which, as discussed above, was to be beaten to death in the presence of his fellow eunuchs. Punishment like this was reserved, however, for the most egregious transgressions.78 The normal punishments meted out to eunuchs were less harsh than the sentences handed down for non-eunuchs. Corporal punishment, for example, was much less harsh a punishment when doled out to eunuchs. Under Qing law, Chinese subjects were flogged with either the light or heavy bamboo (of somewhat standardized sizes). The harsher penalty, of heavy bamboo, could leave its victims with permanent disabilities. By contrast, eunuchs sentenced by the Office of Palace Justice to a beating were struck with bamboo poles that were considerably lighter than the light bamboo. Furthermore, when a eunuch was sentenced to a crime by analogy to the Qing legal code, such a beating was generally commuted to the wearing of the cangue. Nowhere have I found an explanation for these lighter sentences, but one is not hard to imagine. Very few eunuchs were considered irredeemable, and so disabling punishments would not serve the needs of the Imperial Household Department, which planned for eunuchs eventually to return to duty. Perhaps for the same reason, the other punishments meted out to eunuchs tended to be less harsh. Weng Shan was used as a place for eunuch exile and punishment for only the first fifteen years of the Qianlong reign. In 1750 the emperor began renovations to the site, restoring a temple there and changing the name Weng Shan to Wanshou Shan, or “Long-Life Mountain,” to celebrate his mother’s sixtieth birthday.79 Afterward, eunuchs sentenced to cutting grass were sent to Wudian, in the Nan Yuan, a massive hunting preserve to the south of the city. A period of time spent at Weng Shan or, later, Wudian was harsh, but not abysmally so. Eunuchs received food allotments and, under Yongzheng, began receiving their official grain allotments and annual bestowals of clothing. In the spring, each received a coarse blue padded jacket and summer-weight pair of trousers. In the winter, each received a padded coarse blue winter coat, a pair of lined trousers, and a pair of cotton shoes.80 Their work cutting hay was presumably done outdoors,

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but one case report suggests that cutting was done indoors, in a back room in the stables—presumably where the harvested hay was cut down and bundled as horse fodder.81 Yongzheng divided the population of inmates, separating those who were there for serious crimes and serving lengthy or indefinite sentences from those who were there for limited terms, usually because they had run away.82 Eunuchs who were serving life sentences cutting grass were generally guarded carefully. They lived in clusters off to themselves, one to a room, with a soldier stationed outside. Few if any of these eunuchs were guilty of heinous acts; most were there because they had attempted suicide.83 Those who were considered an active danger to themselves or others were kept in chains, although that was rare. Those less carefully guarded eunuchs who were serving fixed terms of a year or two could apparently leave their confinement periodically to pawn or redeem goods.84 There were occasional breakouts from confinement, and these worried Qianlong and Yongzheng before him, who worked to tighten security. Following a 1745 escape, Qianlong shook up the management of Weng Shan and had the walls reinforced. But a case from 1757 shows that even after the move to Wudian, oversight remained lax. In that year, the eunuch Yin Jinzhong escaped by climbing over a wall. His confession and those of other witnesses demonstrate just how light security was. There were ten soldiers detailed to watch all of Wudian. On the day in question, they were operating with a skeleton staff of six (four were on vacation). Of those six, several had actually left without permission and had paid others to serve as substitute guards for them. One of the remaining guards was a soldier retired from duty who was barely capable of guarding the inmates due to poor vision. On top of all of this, investigation revealed that the gate was often randomly opened and closed.85 By 1781 security had not improved. In that year, the eunuch Zhang Fu had escaped through a hole that rain had left in the wall, when the guards were all at the other side of the grounds.86 Despite the lax security, breakouts from Weng Shan and Wudian were fairly rare. Indeed, it was far more common for runaway eunuchs to return as repeat offenders. In one case, a eunuch ran from his post nine times and was sentenced to cutting grass following each capture.87 While his case was extreme, instances of eunuchs running away four and five times, only to be recaptured and sent again to cut grass at Weng Shan or Wudian (and for longer periods), are quite numerous. Taken together, the evidence about Weng Shan and Wudian suggests that these places functioned as a safety valve, giving eunuchs who had been driven by desperation to escape from the palace a period of time working elsewhere before being reassigned to a new post. Working conditions at these stables were tough, but likely no tougher than those faced by eunuchs in many parts of the palace. For a eunuch saddled with a harsh or even dead-end position in the palace, working under a cruel supervisory eunuch or in a palace office that offered few opportunities for moneymaking, escape became an attractive choice, especially if

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the punishments for capture were not too severe. Cutting grass for a year may have been the most attractive option to many eunuchs. All this explains the low number of escapes from a place that was so loosely guarded. The default punishment for eunuchs who committed serious, but noncapital, crimes was to be exiled as slaves to soldiers. The slavery was for life, but in practice there were amnesties and other instances in which eunuchs were freed and allowed to return and resume their work, generally after assignment to another duty station.88 The case reports make clear that exile to certain places was considered harsher punishment than exile elsewhere. Enslavement to a member of the Solon battalion in Heilongjiang was common and considered a severe punishment. After 1763, when members of the Solon battalion were resettled from Manchuria to Ili, in Xinjiang, this became the harshest place of exile. Heilongjiang then became a place of banishment for crimes that were somewhat less serious. Throughout the eighteenth century, the mildest form of banishment (and enslavement to a soldier) was to be sent to the garrison town of Dasheng Wula, just north of Shenyang, where the climate was milder.89 Eunuchs sent into exile usually went in groups escorted by soldiers, with paperwork requirements at both ends of the journey. Once the convicts arrived, however, supervision was extremely light. In 1763, the eunuch Li Xi was exiled to Dasheng Wula for the crimes of drinking, gambling, and quarreling with other eunuchs. On arrival, he was delivered to his master, who did not forbid him to gamble, so Li Xi continued to do so, racking up debts. In order to pay his debts, he planned to ask his master for leave to go to Jilin and borrow money from Tang Guotai, a eunuch he knew who was living there. His master not only generously agreed to give him leave; he told him he should take along his hoe—presumably so he could earn money doing agricultural work along the way. This case came to light only because when the eunuch Tang Guotai was unable to lend the money, Li Xi ran away, this time to his hometown in Hebei.90 Though his master would be punished for allowing Li Xi to run away, there was no mention made of the gambling or of the leave he permitted him. These show the wide latitude given to those eunuchs who were enslaved.91 Penalties were imposed on local banner officers when eunuchs escaped? exile. For example, if one to three eunuchs ran in a given year from Dasheng Wula, the chief eunuch in charge of it would forfeit three months of salary; his subordinates, six months of salary; and the corporals on guard duty would be given eighty lashes.92 While records were not meticulously kept, it appears that flight from exile was a rare phenomenon. In March 1759, for example, the general of Heilongjiang reported that there had been no runaways for the preceding twelve months.93 In some years, only a single eunuch escaped from exile.94 There is even one case in which a gardener fled from the palace to meet up with a eunuch he knew who had been exiled to Dasheng Wula.95

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In 1810, the Jiaqing emperor offered an explanation: the reason that so few eunuchs fled from exile, he claimed, was because they liked it there. Many exiled eunuchs privately redeemed themselves, he noted, by a payment of cash to their captors, and then went on to live lives of leisure. Or they bought businesses. If they were released from exile and sent back to the capital, they happily committed crimes so they could be sent back to exile. Thus it was, he said, that they came to look upon these faraway places of punishment as paradise.96 Jiaqing’s notice of the practice of eunuchs privately redeeming themselves demonstrates that Qianlong’s attempt to limit the practice had failed.97 He had specifically ordered that eunuchs exiled to Heilongjiang could not redeem themselves, and yet documents from local archives confirm that the practice continued unabated. Usually, the practice came to light when officials in Beijing ordered an exiled eunuch to be returned to service and the soldiers to whom the eunuchs had been enslaved had to report that the eunuchs were nowhere to be found. In one case, the palace sent for the eunuch Ma Dexi, who had been using the name Ma Yulin. The soldier who, in theory, was his master noted that Ma frequently came and went doing business, so he had no idea of his whereabouts.98 C O N C LU S I O N

While Qianlong’s system for watching over and punishing his eunuchs looked thorough and effective on paper, the reality, as this chapter shows, was much different. Personnel records that failed to keep track of eunuchs; a method for investigating eunuch wrongdoing that was designed to present the emperor with a rosy view of what his servants were up to; a hierarchy in which middle-level managers monopolized power and information; a police force focused on bounty hunting rather than careful investigation of wrongdoing; a regime of punishments that failed to serve as a robust deterrent—these factors combined to ensure weak and flawed oversight of eunuchs. Weak and flawed oversight, this chapter shows, allowed rank-and-file eunuchs, with the collusion of their supervisory eunuchs, to manipulate the system. In the case of the rank and file, their low status was the source of their power. They used it to blend into the group, wielding anonymity as their best weapon. When caught running away, or when late coming back from a leave, they used a repertoire of excuses that reaffirmed the stereotypes others had of them. If they sought to escape a cruel supervisor, they took their chances by running away and trying to pass and find work outside. If caught, they could turn themselves in to a chief eunuch or the Shenxing Si directly, serve a year at Wudian or Weng Shan, and then be reassigned to a fresh post. If they had a good relationship with their supervisory eunuch, they could work with him directly and avoid punishment by the palace bureaucracy.

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None of this particularly worried Qianlong. His reading of history had taught him to see the threats posed by eunuchs as great, but also limited to specific transgressions, which did not include the machinations at the rank-and-file level. He worried about eunuch involvement in politics and the military, not about their business dealings on the outside. The growing shortage of eunuchs, moreover, also led him to be more lenient in their management. Even though he could not openly encourage his subjects to become eunuchs, he could quietly do things that made the job more attractive, without tarnishing his reputation for being tough on eunuchs. In the next chapter we see the outcome of this flawed system.

9

The World Created by Qianlong and His Eunuchs

In August 1774 a scandal briefly but forcefully shook the Qing court. It began when the Qianlong emperor learned that a eunuch named Gao Yuncong was heard discussing the contents of confidential imperial records. Specifically, these records were part of the Provincial Officials Record Book (Daofu jizai) and contained the emperor’s personal views on his senior provincial officials; Gao had been responsible for maintaining these records. The eunuch was executed for his wrongdoing, and the members of his family tattooed and sent into exile.1 Gao and his family members were not the only ones to suffer. Yu Minzhong, a highly respected official and hero of the Jinchuan campaigns—and, ironically, the official called in to assist with the editing of A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces just thirteen years before— would see his career suffer. Qianlong determined to deny him a hereditary rank because he was found to have done favors for Gao Yuncong.2 The case is frequently cited as testimony to Qianlong’s harsh management of his eunuchs: the Draft History of the Qing claimed it shows how “merciless” (junli) he was toward them.3 If the case of Gao Yuncong showed an enraged Qianlong holding the line against eunuch encroachment into politics, it also demonstrated something of the quiet world of possibilities he was permitting his eunuchs. Gao Yuncong, though a eunuch, was literate and even well educated. He kept company with some of the most important officials in the empire, such as Yu Minzhong, and the legal expert Wu Tan. The case also showed the ease with which eunuchs traded on their positions to become wealthy property owners: as the case unfolded, it was learned that Gao had used his connections at court to pressure a commoner to sell him land. These same connections also led to his further enrichment.4

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This chapter explores the consequences of the world of possibilities Qianlong permitted his eunuchs, using as sources the case reports of eunuch misdoing. We observe Qing eunuchs without the access to political power enjoyed by some of their late-Ming predecessors finding means instead to gain money and influence outside the palace. Circumventing Qianlong’s sensitivities, they built new worlds for themselves. Qianlong was their tacit partner in these enterprises. Dogged by the aforementioned growing need for eunuchs, which he characterized as a shortage, he quietly made the job more attractive by allowing eunuchs to make money. All the while, he stuck to his uncompromising rhetoric. His position was radically different from that of his father, who had established a system in which eunuchs were better paid, incentivized to work harder through official ranks, and assured of care in their old age. Qianlong’s world allowed for more prosperous eunuchs, but it was also a harsher one, in which eunuchs, condemned to low salaries, had to find permitted ways of augmenting their income before the pains of old age set in. Making use of Qianlong’s flawed system of oversight, his eunuchs began to exercise greater control over their lives, and over the space of the palace and even the city itself. These things, too, are discussed in this chapter, as we see temples and princely households emerge as sites that furthered eunuch empowerment. Finally, we see the growing autonomy of Qianlong’s eunuchs as they become more their own masters within the palace world. We begin with the important question of how eunuchs dealt with the low salaries that Qianlong paid them. T H E P R E S SU R E S O F A L OW S A L A RY

Qianlong made rank-and-file eunuchs’ lives harder when he reduced their salaries to two taels per month—a sum that was sufficient to take care of their very basic needs, but left little surplus. Though eunuchs who lived at their duty stations paid no rent, they had to pay for their own food, whether they bought the ingredients and cooked themselves, or purchased cooked foods from outside or at the palace commissaries.5 They also had to buy clothes so they could look presentable on the job, and padded winter coats to shield them from the cold winds of the North China Plain. One of their most expensive outlays was their boots: a pair of satin ones cost more than a month’s salary, and paying for them placed a strain on many.6 They also had the pressures of being well groomed, and while some got their heads shaved in the palace, those who could afford it visited bathhouses and barbers outside on a regular basis.7 If a eunuch was somewhat careful he could just manage to cover all these expenses, with little opportunity to provide the temple offerings that were an important part of eunuchs’ lives.8 If a eunuch wanted a standard of living that went beyond his basic individual needs, two taels were woefully inadequate.

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Many eunuchs, for example, shared their salaries with family on the outside. Recipients might include wives and children they had acquired prior to becoming eunuchs, and parents and even grandparents if they were still living. In some cases, parents of small boys could arrange with palace officials to have their children’s salaries turned over to them directly.9 On the other hand, there were eunuchs who refused to share their earnings with family. When Li Yuchuan, a local historian in Dacheng County, collected stories of retired eunuchs, he learned of one who had made a ritual of throwing his monthly salary in the palace moat rather than sharing it with his parents—whom he hated for pressuring him to become a eunuch.10 Such behavior was certainly not the norm; archival documents are filled with examples of eunuchs sharing their income with family members. Qianlong himself was cynical in the matter of eunuchs claiming to support family. While he was aware of the burden low salaries placed on eunuchs who wanted to give money to their parents, he claimed that genuinely filial eunuchs were few in number and most simply squandered their salaries on gambling, drinking, and other frivolities. He told a group of eunuchs this on April 4, 1744, in the small courtyard of the Yangxin palace, when all eunuchs who worked there and all supervisory eunuchs knelt to receive his scolding.11 Three decades later, the subject of eunuchs supporting their family members came up in a pointed way in the case of a young eunuch named Liang Bao, who had come into service from an impoverished family. His grandfather said that he had arranged with a supervisory eunuch named Liu to have his grandson castrated and sent into palace service. No money had come the grandfather’s way, however, and the family was in desperate straits. When the grandfather sought out the supervisory eunuch who had arranged the castration, the man brushed him off. The chief minister who investigated the case was himself unclear on what precisely the five taels recruits received was supposed to be used for, and, upon inquiring, he learned that they were reimbursement for the necessaries to enter palace service; the monthly cash and grain allotments, too, were for recruits’ individual use, not for redistribution to their families. He opined that a strong statement was necessary, because with three thousand eunuchs in the palace, any hint that families could collect would lead to endless troubles. He recommended that the old man be given eighty blows of the heavy bamboo (in accordance with the statute on “doing what ought not to be done”) and then be banished. Qianlong approved of the harsh penalty.12 On two taels per month, neither could eunuchs easily save for retirement. By the Qianlong era, there were two options open to eunuchs who could no longer serve, whether because of age or disability. The rules were strict that they were obliged to leave Beijing and return to their villages, most of which were in the lowlying counties to the south of the capital. They could also change their hometown to somewhere in Wanping County, and then enjoy retirement in the capital region.

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There they could also join temple associations outside the city, where in return for supporting the temple—or in some cases, in return for support given during their working years—they received care for life.13 These options, however, required money, and a comfortable retirement beyond these options required far more than two taels. Eunuchs considered that they had made a tremendous sacrifice in undergoing castration, and many expected more than just a bare-bones existence in return. After they underwent castration, their severed genitals were preserved and temporarily placed on a roof beam, to signify the hope that this sacrifice would allow them to achieve prosperity and high office as a eunuch. So deeply did they believe in this ritual that in cases in which they performed the operation on themselves, they would use all their energy to get their severed genitals up on the roof beam, though they were dizzy from loss of blood.14 Late in his reign, Qianlong reaffirmed the notion that eunuchs who expected prosperity were bound to be disappointed. He also suggested that potential recruits be carefully warned that they would receive no more than five taels for joining service and two taels per month in salary.15 The hope of a greater-than-subsistence income was nevertheless an important motivation for most eunuchs. Because eunuchs were frequently able to leave the palace, two taels were also insufficient for entertainments they might crave while outside. Eunuchs who went outside, whether on official or personal business, often stopped for meals or entertainments, or partied and gambled with one another and with friends. Unless one was a highly talented gambler, two taels a month were inadequate for these excursions. PAT H S T O P R O SP E R I T Y

Climbing the Ladder The quest to augment their salary was thus one that many Qianlong-era eunuchs undertook vigorously. For some, the answer lay in advancement through the normal eunuch hierarchy. Men who worked their way up the ladder could become supervisory eunuchs. For those who were especially talented, diligent, and well liked by their superiors, there was also the prospect of one day becoming one of the ten or so chief eunuchs in palace service. Supervisory eunuchs received higher salaries (ranging from three to seven taels per month). Even more important, they were poised to receive gifts from the rank-and-file eunuchs who served under them. They also received special bestowals from the emperor, which helped augment their routine salaries. Climbing the ladder was a slow process, however, and Qianlong made it even more so. Late in the third decade of his reign, he began to worry that a patronage system or other corrupt mechanisms were allowing eunuchs to advance too quickly

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to the rank of supervisory eunuch. He changed the rules so that eunuchs could achieve the rank of supervisory eunuch only after “thirty years of diligent and honest service.” The only exception would be when he himself ordered a eunuch promoted early. Promotions were to be reported to the chief ministers of the Imperial Household Department, who were to investigate any irregularities.16 Thirty years was a long time to wait for promotion to supervisory eunuch, so many eunuchs chose a different path, preferring to find informal ways of enlarging their salaries. Moneymaking This quest left eunuchs jockeying for particular positions in the palace that allowed them to make money. Pilfering aside, there were many less risky opportunities for moneymaking in the Qianlong palace. These sorts of opportunities do not often appear in the record, because although the court was likely aware of them, it did nothing to stop them, since they did not transgress the bright lines Qianlong had established for eunuch management. The main ways in which Qianlong-era eunuchs earned extra money were through tips and cartage fees. These tips were neither legal nor illegal; instead, they fell within the large gray zone that governed much of Qing palace life. One finds occasional mention of them in the case reports. In May 1771, for example, a eunuch named Liu Jinfu was found to be stealing clothes from the palace and pawning them. He used his ill-gotten gains to provide food and money to his parents, and also spent them on luxury items for himself, such as a carriage. When questioned about the source of the money, he simply said that it was money he had earned from tips (shangqian) working in the palace.17 This was a statement no one felt compelled to question, because tips of various kinds were commonplace. Cartage fees were ubiquitous in the day-to-day running of the palace. In a 1756 case, for example, a chief eunuch was accused of purloining construction materials and other official property for his own use, and also of receiving gifts from officials. In the course of defending himself, he revealed the place of customary cartage fees in palace life: “It has always been the case that when items from outside need to be brought in, the eunuchs who transport them each receive several taels. The eunuch Xu Chaoxiang, [who reported the wrongdoing] did none of the carrying, but still expected to receive four taels. I told him not to keep the silver, and I returned it. He was unhappy about this and it was for this reason that he reported me.” The case thus came to light only because the disgruntled eunuch Xu Chaoxiang felt cheated out of his tip; but for our purposes it demonstrates just how common these fees were in the day-to-day running of the palace.18 Tips were such a common feature of palace life that eunuchs who had to explain having extra cash used it as an excuse. In 1771, for example, the eunuch Liu Jinfu stole fifty-five pieces of clothing from the Yuanming Yuan, which netted him

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dozens of taels. When pressed on where he had gotten the extra money, he said it was “tips earned while working on the inside.”19 The customary tips that eunuchs received could add up quickly. Given that eunuchs sold themselves into palace service for the sum of five taels, a four-tael tip was a large sum indeed. With the palace receiving so many deliveries, profits were spread liberally, and many eunuchs became prosperous.20 The pressure on eunuchs to succeed financially was time sensitive in Qianlong’s palace because of his court’s particular preference for young eunuchs, which was described in chapter 7. Those who found themselves in an unpleasant, dead-end position in the palace—one that brought little hope for tips or cartage fees— needed to find their way to new positions before they reached their thirties. Failing that, one option was flight from the palace, and possibly, reentry. If biology was on their side, they could pass as non-eunuchs, and find another way of earning money on the outside. Alternatively, they could change their names, lie about their age, and then reenter palace service. This was a risky move, however, because if they were caught and returned, their salaries would be reduced to one tael per month, which would leave them unable to get by. Palace records contain many examples of impoverished eunuchs who took their own lives—and the number of such suicides grew in the late Qianlong era.21 Pawning and Moneylending Once eunuchs were able to build up some savings through unofficial tips and fees, they could then contemplate using what they had saved to accumulate even more money. The most common way they did this was through moneylending, and their borrowers were not necessarily eunuchs; they might be people from inside or outside the palace world, Han or Manchu. Eunuch moneylending, like the taking of tips, was a gray area in which the court generally looked the other way—and became involved only when there was wrongdoing, or when questions arose about what debts were actually owed. One such case involved a eunuch named Gao Gui, a rank-and-file eunuch serving in the Imperial Tea Office (Yu cha fang). Hao Jingui, the father of one of his friends, had opened a business called the Wanshunhao Oil and Salt Store. Hao needed money, and arranged (through a middleman) to borrow nine hundred taels from the eunuch Gao Gui, at an interest rate of 0.018 taels per month. The loan terms were carefully set out in writing, and the note was renegotiated at least once, and the loan continued until all the people involved were either dead or impoverished. When Gao Wen, the eunuch’s brother, tried to recover money from the son of the store owner (Gao Wen’s friend, mentioned above), investigators were perplexed about the source of the loan: “Gao Gui is a eunuch who did not earn much money each year. How did he have nearly a thousand taels to lend to a commoner?” His brother could shed little light on the matter, and attributed it

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only to “careful savings accumulated over time” (jishao chengduo). Investigators ultimately halted the inquiry, perhaps because the eunuch had been dead for a dozen years when the case was brought.22 Nevertheless, the case demonstrates both that rank-and-file eunuchs could become wealthy in the Qianlong period, and that they could supplement their income through moneylending. Eunuchs’ moneylending did not always involve large sums, or guarantors, middlemen, or written documents. In the palace world, small loans could help tide people over in difficult circumstances, while providing the lender with some needed income. In 1773, the eunuch Fan Zhong, who served at Yong’an Si (a temple recognizable as the famous stupa that overlooks Beihai Park in present-day Beijing), lent five thousand copper cash at 10 percent interest to the sula Liushiwu.23 When Liushiwu was unable to repay him, Fan dragged him before his supervisory eunuch, Chen Xuesheng, who, without further investigation, authorized Fan to beat Liushiwu—which he did. When the two enemies met on the street the next day, the anguished sula attempted suicide by taking a knife to his own throat. When Yūnlu (Prince Zhuang), Qianlong’s uncle and a chief minister of the Imperial Household Department, analyzed the case, he found the actions of both eunuchs, Fan and Chen, to be unlawful. First, the rate of interest charged constituted usury. Second, Chen’s siding with his subordinate eunuch, rather than hearing both sides of the story, constituted “unprincipled protection” of a subordinate. Harsh punishments were meted out to both eunuchs, and their superiors, in turn, were punished for failing to discover the usurious loan. Yūnlu, however, never questioned the very practice of eunuchs loaning out money for profit.24 Eunuchs who were wealthy enough to lend out money could also acquire interests in pawnshops, or even own them outright. Pawnshops were ubiquitous in early modern Beijing, where they served as banks for common people.25 People used them both as a means for borrowing money and as a way to keep property safe. In general, they functioned comparably to modern Western pawnshops: those who worked in the shop assessed the value of merchandise, offered cash in return, and provided a pawn ticket for redeeming the merchandise.26 Pawnshop owners generally did not work in the shop themselves, but instead hired managers and clerks to handle day-to-day operations. This at-a-distance ownership was ideal for eunuchs. Pawnshops were among the most profitable forms of investment in early modern China, returning much more than did real estate. At the end of the Qing, eunuchs built wealth through pawnshops. In this regard, no other Qing eunuch was more famous than Li Lianying. One source suggested that he owned at least half the pawnshops in the city of Beijing.27 Because there was no rule against eunuchs owning pawnshops, the phenomenon appears in the archival record only where criminal acts are concerned. For example, in 1785 the eunuch De Ren and his nephew Shi Chengzong were accused

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of hiding money and property in Wanxing Pawnshop, which the eunuch owned. When the government investigated the money held in the pawnshop, it found that while some of it was indeed stolen, there was also money made through legitimate means. The investigating officials accepted De Ren’s word when he claimed that forty thousand taels or more was money he had meticulously saved (and then loaned out for interest) from working in a princely household and the household of the high official E’ertai.28 At the start of his career he had opened the shop with a man named Xu; in time and through diligence he had been able to buy Xu out, to become the sole owner, with his nephew Mr. Shi as operator. It was a profitable enterprise, probably netting close to three thousand taels in interest per year, after paying operating expenses of less than one thousand taels.29 The case of the eunuch De Ren is fascinating for what it reveals about the cozy relations that could exist between eunuchs and Manchu officials in Beijing. The money and property hidden in De Ren’s pawnshop had belonged to Dekjimbu, a high-ranking Manchu official. Dekjimbu had begun his career in the Shiwu Shanshe, a prestigious school for fifteen talented Manchu archers.30 He became a clerk (bithesi), which led to a successful career in provincial administration.31 By 1784 he was appointed surveillance commissioner in Hunan, an important post, and it was while he served in Hunan that his corruption began.32 While responsible for procuring the huge wooden piles used in dam construction, he underpaid wood merchants, skimming off almost ten thousand taels for himself.33. When his crime was discovered, he turned to his friend De Ren for help in storing his ill-gotten gains. In addition to cash, De Ren also hid Dekjimbu’s belongings (including silks and jewelry) in the pawnshop.34 When Dekjimbu was found guilty, he was sentenced to death pending review at the autumn assizes; De Ren was sent to Heilongjiang to become a slave to soldiers; his nephew Mr. Shi was beaten one thousand strokes and exiled to a distance of three thousand li.35 The pawnshop was confiscated and awarded to a princely household. Pawning was not just for chattel; real property could also be pawned. In one case, a woman named Liu-Zhang brought suit against a low-level Manchu foreman named Saling’a, accusing him of forcibly occupying two houses that her late husband had pawned to two commoners. These two men had repawned the houses to two eunuchs.36 The case was referred to the Imperial Household Department, which interrogated Saling’a, who claimed that he had rented the properties to LiuZhang’s husband so that he could open a shop. The two eunuchs were sought so that their contracts could be examined, but the documentary trail stops there.37 These two cases above illustrate several important features of pawnshop ownership in the Qianlong period. First, eunuchs with the means to invest in pawnshops were able to greatly increase their incomes. De Ren’s pawnshop earned a profit of several thousand taels per year, many times his official salary. The two eunuchs in the previous account, whose salary would not have been more than a few taels per

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month, were wealthy enough to cover the pawning of buildings. While we know little about them, one of them, Liu Kui, worked in the Southern Study—a duty station known for making eunuchs rich, perhaps because of gifts received from the officials who worked there. The second thing we learn from these cases is that the Imperial Household Department was not opposed to eunuchs owning pawnshops, whether as silent partners or as direct operators. The parameters of Qianlong-era policies were the product of the emperor’s particular sensitivities about problems eunuchs had caused in the past. As long as eunuchs did not seem to be causing problems that had brought about the fall of the Ming, Qianlong and his imperial household left them free rein to augment their salaries as they saw fit. Their doing so also made the job more attractive to potential recruits. While pawnshops allowed well-to-do eunuchs to supplement their salaries, they were just as important to lower-income eunuchs who patronized the shops. Eunuchs with only a few possessions often pawned them to raise money. The annual pawning of the winter coat, for example, was a way of raising money for the spring festival, and also for keeping that coat safe until the cold weather returned. Pawnshops served a far less innocent purpose as well: they were the mechanism through which stolen goods were fenced. This was in large part because pawnshop clerks asked few questions of the people who came in to pawn their chattel. In the many cases I have seen of eunuchs pawning stolen goods, the shops were never held accountable for receiving the stolen goods; the goods were simply retrieved from the pawnshop and the offending eunuch punished. In 1781, a eunuch was found to have repeatedly climbed over a wall at the Yuanming Yuan and broken into the Wufu Tang (a building that had been used for the practice of variolation, in which children were inoculated against smallpox38). Once there, he forcibly opened locked cases and stole women’s clothes and clothes belonging to Prince Yongyan (who would become the Jiaqing emperor).39 At the time of the thefts, the building was mostly used for storage, and it was only when Yongyan sent a eunuch there to retrieve a case for his bow and arrow that the theft was discovered. When the guilty eunuch (and his accomplice) were brought to justice, it was learned that they had pawned all their stolen items at two pawnshops in Beijing, evidently without raising an eyebrow.40 The pawnshop owners were insulated from charges of receiving stolen property. Investments and Influence outside the Palace As we noted in the introduction, eunuchs were in the peculiar position of being simultaneously of low and high status. In the palace most were menial servants, but outside the palace they were important men. This dynamic is revealed in the case of a eunuch named Chen Taiping, who was captured in 1781 following a period on the lam from his work in a Daoist temple in the Jingming Yuan, an

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imperial garden in northwestern Beijing that Qianlong would enlarge substantially.41 After eleven years of work as a low-ranking eunuch, his salary had never exceeded two taels a month, and he had little in the way of savings. When he spied communal funds of two taels lying in a storeroom where imperial pendants were kept, he took the money and headed off to get drunk. Afraid of being beaten for his misdeed, he ran from the garden and hid out in a temple and then a guesthouse, hoping to find another way to make a living. Failing that, when the two taels ran out, he fled in desperation to the home of a newfound half sister; in fear of the consequences, she reported him to the authorities, who came to arrest him.42 Among all the interesting features of the case, one stands out above all others: the confession of Chen’s half sister. In explaining her actions when her eunuch half brother, whom she had never met, showed up at her door, she said the first thing she felt was fear, because, she explained, “he was an official.” Chen Taiping may have been a mere rank-and-file eunuch, struggling to get by on two taels a month and living in the far reaches of the palace world, but in his hometown he was nothing less than an official. The remark is in no way unique to Chen’s file; many others make the same point.43 Hometown Advantages If some hometown people were petrified at the prospect of a eunuch relative showing up at their door, others saw the eunuch’s position as presenting an opportunity, and used it to earn money in their home areas. In one late-Qianlong episode, a man lied and claimed that he had inherited some disputed land from the eunuch Zhang Guoxiang, the better to intimidate the other parties in the dispute.44 Eunuchs themselves also sometimes used their status in their hometowns to their advantage. Well aware of the phenomenon, Qing emperors Yongzheng, Qianlong, and Jiaqing gave the matter particular attention. In the case of Yongzheng, as chapter 5 related, the sensitivity arose because of the eunuchs who, following the succession scandal, stirred up trouble when they were sent from the palace. He instituted strict rules, ordering local officials to report problems caused by eunuchs or their relatives.45 Qianlong issued an edict in the last decade of his reign reminding local officials of their responsibility to report wrongdoing, paying tribute to his father’s rules in the process.46 In the subsequent Jiaqing period, local officials continued to file reports on the relatives of eunuchs in their areas, reassuring the emperor that none had acted improperly.47 The case files include examples of eunuchs who abused their influence. In 1755, for example, eunuch Liu Fu, who had served in a succession of princely households, returned to his hometown of Huimin, Shandong, ostensibly to visit the graves of his ancestors. The real reason, extracted from him by torture, was that the local licentiate (gongsheng) had beaten his nephew to death, and the eunuch wanted to influence the outcome of the prosecution. On arriving in his hometown,

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the eunuch paid a call on the prefect, riding in a cart with horses in the front and an entourage of servants in the back. He walked directly into the prefect’s yamen, presenting a name card bearing brazenly overblown credentials. He then asked the prefect to force the licentiate to provide money to inter his nephew. This was going too far, and the eunuch received the especially harsh punishment of death by beating.48 Had the eunuch been more subtle, his case would not have come to light and his influence would have been felt. In another case of conduct that crossed the line, a eunuch’s influence was used to extort money from a local merchant. In that case, a contractor who was responsible for stonework at the Yuanming Yuan was unable to meet his debts. In desperate straits, he forged an account book showing that the stone supplier for the project still owed him 850 taels of silver. He conspired with one of the masons on the project to solicit the help of the eunuch Hu Liangcheng, who, they proposed, could pretend to be in the service of Prince He. If the stone merchant failed to pay, they would threaten to bring him before the prince. Although it took two visits to convince the eunuch to participate, once the conspirators promised him half the money, he agreed.49 In other recorded cases of eunuch involvement in hometown affairs, the eunuch’s status was wielded much more subtly. Chief among these cases were business enterprises in which eunuchs were silent, or partially silent, partners. In these instances, eunuchs were able to draw not only on their status, but also on their greater prosperity relative to their hometown fellows. A eunuch who earned even a small salary might be prosperous compared with those from his village, and he could use that extra money and his influence as a path to further prosperity. Because eunuch involvement in business enterprises on the outside was tacitly permitted, evidence of it appears in the written record only in cases in which other wrongdoing was claimed. In an embezzlement case from 1788, for example, we learn that the eunuch Qi Guorui was a silent partner in two of his cousin’s pastry shops.50 In a case from 1742, three brothers, unable to afford a funeral for their father, contemplated selling, for ninety taels, a warehouse he had owned to a eunuch who worked in a temple in the Shoukang palace.51 Business dealings such as these only increased over the course of the Qing. In a later case (likely from the 1830s), the eunuch Lan Jinxiang returned to his home county to bring suit against Sun Wenxiang. Lan had regularly sent money to his uncle, who invested the money for him in a dry-goods store owned by Sun. When the store went out of business, Sun refused to return any money to Lan’s uncle. Taking two months of leave from his post, the eunuch returned to his home area to take matters into his own hands and recover his investment money. In addition to eunuchs’ financial interests in their hometowns, the case shows the freedom with which eunuchs could leave their posts for long periods, and how they were subtly able to use their status to bring pressure to bear in their home areas. In contrast with the above case of Liu

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Fu, who had marched into the prefect’s office with exaggerated credentials in hand, this eunuch was considered to be within acceptable bounds in wielding his influence.52 Eunuchs’ connections and influence in their hometowns, of course, extended beyond means for enriching themselves; they often gave money to support their relatives, even buying them houses and land. The cases sometimes tell of the mutual, warm sentiments they shared with their hometown folk.53 In September 1751 a commoner named Zhao Liangzi was doing his menial job at the temple to the Thunder God (Leishen Miao) when the eunuch Zhao Guotai came to the temple to see him. They had met before; Zhao Liangzi knew that the eunuch worked at the Yuanming Yuan, and also knew they were both from Dacheng County. The eunuch was in a terrible state; he had made a mistake at his work, and as punishment would be sent to work at Rehe, the imperial summer villa in Manchuria. What was worse was that he was sick, and feared that if he slept on the cold bed in his dormitory his illness would get much worse. He begged Zhao Liangzi to let him recuperate at his home for just a few days. The laborer was himself in bad circumstances, but he took in the eunuch, serving as his guarantor while he sweated out his fever. In explaining his kindness, Zhao said: “I was influenced by the sympathetic emotion that comes from being a hometown fellow.”54 Eunuchs did not always harbor such warm feelings toward their hometowns. Many eunuchs who appear in the case files had left their hometowns behind, happy never to return. Frequently, as discussed above, they moved their household registrations from their hometowns (almost always in Hebei) to Wanping County, on the western side of the city of Beijing. Doing so was the mark of a successful eunuch. With their relatives nearby, eunuchs were able to visit family with ease. Just as important, once their hometowns were moved to Wanping, the rule requiring that they return to their hometown in retirement allowed them to remain within the environs of the capital. In the above sections, we saw the ways in which eunuchs sought to survive, protect, and even enrich themselves, wielding influence outside the palace and in their hometowns. Next we turn to two kinds of places that played an important role in eunuch empowerment: temples and princely households. SI T E S O F P OW E R

Temples and Their Monks While it is difficult to know precisely what role Buddhism played in the religious and spiritual lives of eunuchs, we know a great deal about its practical role. The subject has already come up several times in this book. We also observed the role of Buddhist language in steles and elsewhere, in which the relationship between emperor and eunuch was characterized through Buddhism, with the emperor

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playing the role of merciful Buddha. And we saw the quietly pious Su Peisheng, chief eunuch to the Qianlong emperor, retiring to the company of the Buddhist monks with whom he daily prayed. We observed how, in the Kangxi period, eunuchs who were part of the emperor’s inner circle very publicly and with immense energy invested in the construction and renovation of Buddhist temples. Post-Kangxi temple-renovation projects were undertaken much more subtly than they had been earlier. By the waning years of the Qianlong reign, when there were many wealthy eunuchs, they made their contributions quietly or even anonymously. Their growing wealth, inconspicuously achieved, also made their temple contributions much less ostentatious than those of their forebears. In 1794, for example, three eunuchs who worked in the imperial workshop collaborated to restore the road to the Wuhua Temple (Wuhua si), which had fallen into disrepair. These original sponsors remained anonymous, but other eunuch contributors— those who donated much smaller amounts—were listed on the reverse side of the stele that commemorated the restoration.55 The attitudes of the eighteenth-century court played an important role in making possible and also limiting the culture of Beijing’s eunuchs. Eunuchs were allowed to partake in temple activities so long as they did not do so in the flamboyant ways of Ming eunuchs. Moreover, because their lives revolved around temples outside the palace, eunuchs relied on the indulgence of the court in allowing them to come and go. The Imperial Household Department was accommodating in this regard, occasionally even adjusting its schedule to facilitate eunuch attendance at major temple fairs. Rank-and-file eunuchs could participate in temple activities with the approval of their supervisory eunuchs. Their supervisors, in turn, were technically required to ask permission of the chief eunuchs before leaving the palace, but in practice many seem to have entered and left the palace at will. Only in 1807 does the matter seem to have come up, when the Jiaqing emperor ordered a chief eunuch, Chang Yonggui, to investigate whether supervisory eunuchs had been leaving the palace at night to burn incense at temples.56 Presumably, he had no objection to their leaving during the daytime. Not all of eunuchs’ associations with temple life were so upstanding; neither were all eunuch-monks devout and moral people. The case files of the Imperial Household Department contain more than a few records of wrongdoing by eunuch-monks who worked in the palace. These cases, like others that deal with the behavior of eunuchs outside the palace, demonstrate the important power differential we have observed: that rank-and-file eunuchs were powerful outside the palace, powerless within. In one notable case, a eunuch-monk named Yu Ronghuan was loitering outside a shop with his shopkeeper friends when the local police chief (xunjian), Zhang Ruoying, passed by. When his friend stood to salute the police chief, as was his custom, it annoyed the eunuch-monk Yu, who remained sitting disrespectfully,

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with one leg jutting out. “He’s nothing but a police chief; why bother to be so respectful?” Yu challenged his friend. This piqued the police chief ’s suspicions, and presumably his anger; when he returned to the office the next day he sent his men to question the man claiming to be a eunuch-monk. Soon after, the monk barged into Zhang’s office demanding to know what the police chief wished to know about him, and then refused to answer where he was from, in which temple he lived, and whether he had a religious license (dudie). “You mind your business as an official, I mind mine as a monk,” he yelled. “I am not a criminal, so why do you want to investigate me?” Zhang then ordered his men to beat Yu, who shouted, “I am a eunuch-monk in the palace! Who dares to lay a finger on me?” Zhang realized his error only when Yu returned with some of his fellow monks from the palace. In his own defense, Zhang pointed out that his previous posting had been in Rehe, where he had never known of the existence of eunuch-monks. Moreover, how could a palace eunuch spend his days killing time outside city shops instead of working in the palace?57 There were other instances of wrongdoing by eunuch-monks. In one case, a eunuch-monk by the name of Zhang Feng was found to have allowed his name to be used in a false accusation against a man named Yang Jing. Yang had been lovers with Madame Zhang, a woman forced into prostitution by her husband and aunt. When Madame Zhang poisoned herself, the husband and aunt sought to blame Yang Jing. They had met the eunuch-monk Zhang Feng and, since his surname was also Zhang, proposed that he pose as the dead woman’s uncle. Relying on his status as a eunuch, they would extort money from Yang Jing, whose family was wealthy, by threatening to lodge an accusation. They demanded a sum of one thousand taels in hush money, which the wrongdoers, including eunuch-monk Zhang, split among themselves.58 These cases of misconduct stood out from the rest, and caught the attention of Qianlong and his officials. Beneath them, however, lay a sea of much smaller eunuch transgressions that never rose to imperial attention. These smaller transgressions show how the temples of the capital region, and the monks who inhabited them, played a vitally important role in sheltering eunuchs from the imperial gaze. As we have seen, temples were often the temporary refuge of eunuchs in flight from the palace. It was also not uncommon, however, for runaway eunuchs to live as monks in temples on the outside, sometimes for years at a time. Most were never discovered, but enough were caught to indicate the scope of the problem. The eunuch Meng Guoxiang, for example, had been working at the Jingyi Yuan for five years until, unable to get along with his fellow eunuchs, he “conceived of the idea of running away to practice Buddhism.” He ran to the Western Hills, and to a temple called Tianxian Miao. The abbot—convinced by Meng’s story that he had been discharged from palace service due to illness, and by his threat of suicide

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unless he could become a monk—tonsured him and gave him the Buddhist name Jieming. Fearful of being discovered at a temple so close to the capital, Meng moved to several different temples (one in Fangshan County, then another in Renqiu County). He remained on the outside for a total of seven years, until a Household Registration (Baojia) inspector discovered him in 1758.59 In these and other, similar cases, the guilty eunuchs were discovered only by accident, never as a result of a systematic search of the temples by the Fanyi police. The court even seemed to do little about eunuchs who fled from the palace and became monks with the express purpose of rejoining the palace as eunuch-monks. In 1752, for example, the eunuch Zhu Xiang abandoned his post in the Yushu Fang (an imperial library) and was tonsured with the goal of reentering palace service as a monk in the Buddhist temple at the Changchun Yuan. When this was brought to Qianlong’s attention in a memorial, the writer opined that there were likely many such instances, and that the Fanyi police should be charged with investigating them and rooting out the offenders. He also suggested that new recruits seeking to become eunuch-monks should be brought before the chief eunuchs to determine whether they were runaway eunuchs. Yet Qianlong’s only action on the memorial was to write the word “noted,”60 and there is no evidence of any such investigation taking place. Moreover, it would be very impractical to bring new recruits before all the chief eunuchs, who were stationed at different locations in the palace. In any case, as discussed in chapter 8, the Fanyi police (the “Inner Police Bureau”) could not be expected to know every eunuch in the capital. Temples made ideal eunuch hideouts, as these stories of runaways suggest. They dotted the landscape in great number, many were in out-of-the-way places, and the eunuchs who hid in them knew temple culture well. I have found only one case in which a member of the Fanyi police discovered a missing eunuch who was hiding in a temple, and that was the result of a random sighting.61 The imperial household investigators certainly knew that eunuchs hid out in temples. The confessions sometimes mentioned particular temples where the eunuchs had taken shelter, though confessing eunuchs were usually careful to state that none of the monks had knowingly sheltered them.62 More frequently, however, the confessions use the aforementioned stock phrase: “I wandered the streets by day, and hid in dilapidated temples by night.” This phrase, indeed, became so common that roughly one in five confessions of eunuch runaways contains it. It strongly implies that eunuchs relied on the phrase to conceal the specific temples in which they were hiding out. Imperial Household investigators included the phrase without inquiring more deeply into the places that sheltered eunuchs.63 Finally, there was, generally speaking, a sort of general fluidity of identity between eunuchs and (especially Buddhist) monks. One of the synonyms for “eunuch” that appears even in the Qing is siren, which literally means “temple

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person.” Monks and eunuchs also looked similar, because both were generally beardless. They were also both considered to have left home, and in the process took on new names. There was thus, in sum, a natural kinship between the two that frequently made them allies. Princely Households Chapter 5 showed the high point of princely mischief in the Qing, when several of the sons of Kangxi schemed for the throne, using every means at their disposal. When Yongzheng won out in the end, it was he who put an end to conflict between princes by beginning the process of secret succession. His actions reflected not only his own creativity and management skills, but also Qing traditions built up since the conquest, which were themselves built on Altaic traditions of fraternal governance. The Ming saw princes as a constant threat to imperial power, and banished them from the capital to live on landed estates in the empire. The Qing, by contrast, as Evelyn Rawski has shown, allowed princes into government, but used titles and other awards to keep them in line and reward them for outstanding service. All their privileges were held at the pleasure of the emperor, who could add to them or remove them at will. The result, as Rawski writes, is that “Qing princes were transformed into pillars of the imperium, not its inevitable rivals.”64 Though it was normal practice for all princes—whether young and living in the palace, or established with their own mansions—to have their own eunuch staffs, emperors perceived and noted the dangers of this practice time and again. As we noted in previous chapters, Kangxi had worried about the undue influence of clever eunuchs on the impressionable minds of his young sons, and the likelihood that eunuchs promoted distraction from pursuits that were vital to Manchu identity. Kangxi and other Qing emperors well understood that eunuchs who had grown powerful in previous dynasties often did so by cultivating young princes. The Qianlong emperor likewise worried about the influence of eunuchs on the character of the princes. This was clear from an episode that took place in the fourth year of his reign. At the time Qianlong ascended the throne, his brother Hongyan (1733–1765) was just six years old. The boy loved the Yuanming Yuan so much that he was informally dubbed “the Yuanming Yuan prince” (even though Qianlong, who was fond of him, had already awarded him the title Prince Guo). Once when Hongyan was watching fireworks at the Yuanming Yuan, Qianlong came close to him, and his little brother, fearing the twenty-eight-year-old monarch, ran from his presence. Incensed, and worried that the boy’s character was overly influenced by the eunuchs, he ordered two chief eunuchs beaten in the young prince’s presence.65 In another edict, he warned against eunuchs becoming friendly with officials and their families, and with princes.66 Qianlong would continue, throughout his reign, to include princely-household eunuchs in his inevitable exhortations, warning them not to cause trouble while outside the princely

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households, and mandating that none leave the households without authorization and that any dispatched on orders of their princes be given proper paperwork.67 If there were cases of eunuchs committing serious wrongdoing in princely households during the Qianlong period, they have effectively been covered up. Or perhaps their secrets lie within the archives of the Imperial Clan Court (Zongren fu), which are not yet open for use.68 Occasional minor offenses by such eunuchs and the inevitable disputes over wrongdoings continued to appear in the records from Qianlong’s reign; these did not so much threaten the safety or integrity of the princes, however, as they revealed holes in the emperor’s very system of controlling and managing eunuchs, as we shall see. Princely Households as New Sources of Palace Eunuchs. Princely households of the Qianlong era were not the dens of iniquity they had been in the late Kangxi period, and they came to play a quiet role in the system of eunuch recruitment and management, which carried some important unintended consequences. As we noted in chapter 7, one way in which Qianlong addressed the eunuch shortage—and specifically, the shortage of young eunuchs—was by drawing eunuchs from the princely households. This trend accelerated, particularly in the last years of his reign. As Yao Yuanzhi (1773–1852) noted: “In the ending years of Qianlong, the palace was short of eunuchs, and so they were taken from the households of princes and high officials. The reason was that the princes and high officials were using too many eunuchs, largely because the number of eunuchs the princes could use had never been regulated.”69 As a source of more eunuchs, the princely households served Qianlong’s needs well. They allowed him to augment the numbers of his eunuchs without changing his tough rhetoric, or the salaries or five-tael inducement given to eunuchs. Late in his reign, in fact, he would continue to brag about how low the pay was, and how few taels recruits received, claiming that these were the reason for the eunuch shortage.70 As suggested in chapter 7, creative accounting was allowing Qianlong to show an ever-decreasing number of eunuchs when in fact the number of his eunuchs was likely rising, owing to the growth in the number of palaces and other buildings that required eunuch staff. Since there was no limit on the number of eunuchs in the princely households, in the Qianlong period these households could supply a large number of eunuchs to the imperial household. What effectively became a new route for becoming a eunuch—via the princely households—began with a ruling in the late Qianlong era allowing those who had castrated themselves, or had had the operation performed without proper authorization (sizi jingshen), to enter into service. Boys could be castrated privately, even in some cases by a parent, and then apply directly to a princely household. If they were transferred into palace service, a good recommendation

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from the prince was all that was required. With no permission required from the Imperial Household Department to become a eunuch, and with no restrictions on the numbers of eunuchs that could serve in the princely households, the princes’ households became an effective reservoir for palace eunuchs. With eunuchs entering the profession in this new way, the amount of money given as an inducement was allowed to rise and follow market forces. Eunuchs who were older, and therefore less desirable, received less money, and younger eunuchs were given more. Unfortunately, this market system created some perverse incentives. In a particularly egregious case of kidnapping, in 1793 a young boy named Liju was sold to the household of Prince Mianxun (a grandson of Qianlong’s brother Hongjeo) for fifteen taels. Liju had been wandering lost when he was lured off the streets near Desheng Gate by a man named Zhu Da, who had learned that Mianxun’s household was interested in purchasing eunuchs.71 Zhu Da brought him home, and arranged to have him drugged (using a brown-sugar tea served by his wife) and castrated, with the help of a friend (Zhou Da) who had worked in the imperial household. Before being sold, Liju was allowed to heal for a few days, and was told that life as a eunuch would have its advantages. Zhu Da posed as his father, and received the bulk of his monthly salary, leaving Liju (whose name he changed to the common eunuch name Hou Jinxi) only eight hundred cash per month.72 The wrongdoing was exposed only when the young eunuch was out on the streets and was spotted by his mother.73 By late in the dynasty, the price for each eunuch had risen substantially, and princes themselves were paid by the Imperial Household Department for sending eunuchs into the palace. One source reports that every five years each princely household was responsible for sending five eunuchs into palace service, and was paid 250 taels per eunuch.74 Creative Accounting and Lax Record Keeping in the Princely Households. Though within the Board of Rites there was a Princely Household Department, which was responsible for keeping personnel records on princely-household eunuchs, in practice many such eunuchs were not registered in these files.75 One important reason for this was that the princely-household eunuchs in the Qianlong period were subject to creative accounting: not all were on the books. Census documents of the households of even the highest-ranked princes showed very few numbers of eunuchs, since they did not include ordinary eunuchs. In 1747, when the chief minister of the imperial household reported on the numbers of eunuchs in some of the seniormost princely households, he reported only on those ranked seven or eight (the equivalent of supervisory eunuchs). Each of these princes had either four or six such men.76 The number of ordinary eunuchs was much larger, and many households had dozens of eunuchs.

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Record keeping in general was extremely lax in the princely households, and eunuchs entered and left the service of a prince with far fewer formalities than eunuchs in the palace. Case reports reveal that eunuchs whose service was unsatisfactory could simply be discharged from service, without the standard punishments that eunuchs who worked in the palace would receive. For example, in 1773, the eunuch Cui Jinzhong, who had worked in the princely household of Prince Kang, missed a single shift, and was expelled (zhuchu).77 In later periods, eunuchs could even leave the service of a princely household of their own accord, as was the case with a eunuch whose original name was Wang Xi. Castrated at age fourteen sui, he came to work in the household of Prince Cheng, resigned (cichu) from Prince Cheng’s service after changing his name to Wang Yu, and went to work in the household of Prince Su. Twelve years later, in the Daoguang reign, he left Prince Su’s service of his own accord because he found the salary inadequate.78 Those eunuchs who were expelled—and, in later years, those who resigned— would have the freedom to find new jobs by applying directly to another princely household. These men were subject to far less scrutiny than their counterparts in the emperor’s service because they were assumed to be privy to fewer secrets. Only once does the court seem to have inserted itself into the procedures for releasing eunuchs from service in the princely households. In 1768, the imperial household worried that eunuchs found living on their own had no way of proving that they were not runaways. It was decided that those discharged from service in a princely household were to be given certificates to prove their status.79 Even when eunuchs were transferred from a princely household into palace service, very little information accompanied them. Those sent in carried a document that had only their name, age, and home county. All three of these identifiers, as we noted in chapter 8, were unreliable, and eunuchs often changed them. There was even less information on eunuchs sent from the palace to the princely households: they came with name only.80 The records of the Princely Household Department of the Board of Rites carried one additional piece of information: a brief physical description of the eunuch; but this description did not follow a eunuch to a new posting. Moreover, as also noted in chapter 8, the descriptions were too general to be of use, so were not frequently consulted. Hiding and Flourishing in Plain View. Given the laxity of Qianlong-era supervision of princely-household eunuchs, it is not surprising that these residences, too, became sources of empowerment to eunuchs—a phenomenon that grew over the course of the eighteenth century and beyond. Coming to rely on the princely households as reservoirs of eunuchs, the court looked the other way while the numbers of eunuchs in them were allowed to rise. Eunuchs for their part could rely on the relative ease of entry to make the princely households into a source of empowerment.

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Eunuchs who were unhappy in their palace jobs could run from the palace, change their names, and enter the service of a prince’s household. If they appeared young and were still agile, they could also change their ages, rendering themselves more desirable to their employers and commanding higher prices. The chief ministers of the Imperial Household Department knew how common the practice was, and during the early Qianlong period made some attempt to deal with it. The case that brought the matter to a head is a circuitous but revealing story. It concerned a eunuch named Song Shun. Born in Raoyang County, he was castrated in 1739 and served as a boat punter at the Yuanming Yuan.81 In 1746 he missed his duty and ran from the palace to Jining Prefecture in Shandong, where he made a living selling ribbons. He then moved to the home of his elder brother, but when the situation became untenable because the house was too crowded, he and his brother planned to secure Song’s employment in a princely household. When they approached Liu Qifeng, a eunuch in the household of Prince Cheng, he declined to serve as Song’s guarantor, but suggested that Song simply apply to the prince directly (which he referred to as kowtowing to the prince). The two followed his advice, and when they encountered the prince at the gate to his home, Song Shun identified himself as a newly castrated eunuch named Song Yukui, from Raoyang County. The prince agreed to employ the eunuch (at price of ten taels, five of which Song Shun gave to his brother). After serving the prince for six years, however, Song again ran away. He was able to find a third position, however, in the household of Prince Heng Gong, through the hometown connections of an acquaintance and of Cao Zhu, a eunuch in that household. Because Song was older by this point, and therefore a somewhat less desirable eunuch, the sum for this transaction was only five taels (two of which Song gave to his acquaintance). His service to Heng Gong lasted just a year before he fled yet again. Song found a fourth position—at the Imperial Ancestral Temple—through Zhang Rui, a eunuch who worked there. (Zhang shortened Song’s name to Song Yu, presumably to help disguise his past.) The case might never have come to light except that one day Song Yu left the palace to shop and was questioned by police, who extracted his story.82 Yūnlu, a chief minister of the Imperial Household Department whom we have encountered before, then ordered the archives checked to see whether there were records on Song Shun. The records check revealed that back in 1733 Su Peisheng (the same eunuch of note in chapter 7) had assigned a eunuch named Song Shun to serve at the Yuanming Yuan. According to the records, this eunuch had run away. The case exposed the weaknesses in the system of imperial household record keeping, and the essential informality through which eunuchs entered and left the service of the princes. Song’s story further demonstrates that entry into palace service via the princely households required few formalities. Instead, connections

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were made, which allowed the applicant to bypass the formality of application to the Board of Rites. There was no investigation of the eunuch’s past; not even records held in the Board of Rites were consulted. These eunuchs, who bypassed all screening mechanisms, then provided the reservoir for palace eunuchs. Yūnlu proposed to deal with the problem via an amnesty program rather than a general investigation and crackdown on eunuchs, which might cause them to flee. If eunuchs were to turn themselves in within one year, and confess the full circumstances of their previous flights and name changes, he offered, they could remain at their present posts and be absolved of guilt. The princes who employed them would also be fully exonerated. Eunuchs who did not come forward within the year would be sent to Dasheng Wula to perform hard labor. Punishment would also extend to their family members.83 The program flushed only a few eunuchs out of hiding during the yearlong grace period. One who decided to turn himself in was Zhang De, who had been working for two years in the house of Prince Lü. Zhang had begun his career in the service of Kangxi’s tenth son, Yūn’o, but when Yongzheng came to the throne, he was sent to work as a palace eunuch. In 1740, after making a mistake at work—and fearing the wrath of his supervisory eunuch—he fled to his hometown, where for six years he remained undetected. He found it hard to make a living there, however, so he returned to the capital and changed his name to the very common Zhang Guotai. Claiming to be a newly castrated eunuch, he went into the service of Prince Lü. As Zhang would admit in his confession: “When I learned that his majesty was bestowing this grace, how could I dare to continue hiding?” The Imperial Household Department exempted him from any punishment, though it kept a record of his absconding to be counted against him in the case of a future escape.84 Few eunuchs, however, seem to have availed themselves of the amnesty program—and the promised crackdown at the end of the one-year amnesty period never took place. Freedom and Empowerment in the Princely Households. Despite the court’s attempt to clamp down on it, eunuchs’ practice of using the princely households to recycle themselves continued. Cases regularly came to light, such as that of the eunuch An Dexiang, who twice ran to his hometown and was now working at his second princely household. An had a drinking problem that accounted for his unhappiness and frequent flights. Working with a clerk in the Board of Rites, he changed his name and native place, which facilitated his returns to service. Those efforts were hardly necessary, as we have seen, since the records of that office were seldom if ever consulted.85 The practice continued largely unabated, with cases frequently appearing in the archival record.86 Eunuchs who used princely households as sources of empowerment could combine them with the sources of empowerment described in the previous

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section: temples and monkhood. The winding journey of Liu Shuzhong from eunuch to monkhood provides an illustration. One day, after making a mistake in the Imperial Tea Office, where he had worked for more than twenty years, he ran from the palace out of fear of punishment from the chief eunuch. After searching in vain for his relatives, he returned to Beijing two years later, changed his name to the very common Yang Yu, and took a job in the household of Prince Yu. The salary was so low, however, that he could not get by, and after two years he went to work in the household of Prince Guo. Three years later he was caught on the job stealing silver and imprisoned in the princely household’s prison. After absconding yet again, Liu was caught and sent to Dasheng Wula, where he remained for ten years. He managed to escape confinement, however, and returned to his hometown with the intention of becoming a monk. After hiding in a series of princely households—and then in a series of temples, posing as monk and then as a eunuchmonk—he was finally allowed to stay in the family temple of a beile prince.87 Over the course of the Qianlong period and beyond, the princely households became useful to eunuchs, not only for presenting opportunities to recycle themselves, but also as more desirable workplaces. The princes had effectively little restriction on salaries and tips, which increased opportunities for eunuchs to earn money. The eunuch Zhang Chaofeng, who had served in a princely household, amassed houses and businesses, all of which he had purchased via tips from the prince.88 Many of the well-off eunuchs who appear in the official record worked in the princely households. Such was the case with Wu Sirui, who had bought a sizable piece of property in Tianjin County. Not in itself illegal, his land ownership came to light when a dispute erupted between his brother (who had inherited the land) and a man who illegally placed it on the rental market.89 Eunuchs whose place of employment was a princely household could, with that prince’s approval, live on the outside. Many of them used the additional freedom to develop rich and complex lives there. Occasional attempts by Qianlong’s son, the Jiaqing emperor, to crack down on eunuchs in the princely households attests that they were beginning to be seen as a problem. Jiaqing set a quota on the number of eunuchs the princes of different echelons could have in their employ, pointing out that no such quota had existed in his father’s reign.90 In addition, Jiaqing reemphasized the rules of his father, which had mandated that young eunuchs be sent from the princely households into palace service, with older and less competent eunuchs sent from the palace to the princely households.91 He also forbade eunuchs who had been transferred from the princely households to the palace from visiting their former masters’ households, lest they engage in gossip about goings-on at court.92 Despite attempts to crack down, the princely households continued to be places of greater freedom, whose significance grew steadily over the course of the dynasty. Jiaqing may have tried to be strict, but he did not change the fundamental principle

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that the princely households were essentially recruiting grounds for eunuchs that allowed an unrestricted backdoor entry into palace service. Life in the princely households evidently became much more desirable than life in the palace. As a result, many eunuchs happily spent their entire careers in them. Eunuchs who had it good in the princely households came to dread the palace’s call for eunuchs, and would go into hiding to avoid transfer. By the Jiaqing period, it became possible on the Beijing market to buy out one’s required move to palace service by paying a substitute eunuch who would go in one’s stead. In one princess’s household, the princess’s husband would help the eunuchs in the household to finance a surrogate, although they were expected to shoulder the greater part of the cost.93 So it was that the princely households added another dimension to the freedoms of Qianlong-era eunuchs. When Qianlong allowed the princely households to become reservoirs for palace eunuchs, his eunuchs earned themselves another site of power. The Growth of Autonomy and Territorialism in the Palace As the Qianlong-era palace world expanded beyond the Forbidden City, it slowly became less the emperor’s and more his eunuchs’. This change was evident in dramas small and large that played out in increasing numbers over the course of the eighteenth century. In far-flung areas where there was little oversight, eunuchs were increasingly autonomous. This change amounted to a breakdown of the system envisioned by Kangxi, in which rank-and-file eunuchs were monitored by supervisory eunuchs, and supervisory eunuchs were overseen by chief eunuchs. As that system deteriorated, the growing sense of autonomy of some eunuchs led to a territorial attitude among many of them, who came to see other eunuchs, from other parts of the palace world, as outsiders and rivals. Many of these dramas were concentrated at the garden palaces in northwestern Beijing, especially at the Yuanming Yuan.94 A case from 1771 provides an explanation: many of the rank-and-file eunuchs at the Yuanming Yuan lived and worked far from their supervisors. The case concerned a group of eunuchs who worked for the Office of the Imperial Wardrobe, or Sizhi Shi. Its main offices were headquartered at the Forbidden City, but these eunuchs were assigned to work at the Yuanming Yuan. In total there were ten of them, living in a small two-story building that served as their duty station. Three lived in one room on the first floor, five lived in two rooms on the second floor, and two lived in the main room of a story added off the back. All were rank-and-file eunuchs; their supervisors lived elsewhere. One night one of the eunuchs, Cao Yi, went to gamble with the two eunuchs who lived in the added room off the back, Zhang Jinchao and Hu Yuzhu. They played into the small hours, and when Zhang and Hu saw that Cao was losing, they decided to stop the game. This enraged Cao, who wanted a chance to recoup

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his losses, and he began cursing at the others. Hu Yuzhu suggested that they turn from gambling to drinking, and offered alcohol. They began drinking in earnest, although this did not quiet Cao’s rage. He returned briefly to his room to grab a knife, then went back to the other eunuchs’ room and discovered Hu Yuzhu in the middle of retrieving the chamber pot. An altercation ensued. Cao, drunk and enraged, stabbed and killed Hu. When a chief minister of the imperial household analyzed the case, he recommended that Cao be handed over to the Board of Punishments for execution. Qianlong intervened, and ordered that the death sentence be carried out by the Imperial Household Department, in full view of the eunuchs, to serve as a lesson for them. Following the principle of hierarchical responsibility, the guilty men’s supervisory eunuchs were held accountable, as was the chief eunuch, and punishments were meted out accordingly. The case report blames these men for not carefully supervising the rank-and-file eunuchs in their charge, noting that the supervisors had allowed gambling to take place, which had led to the alcohol-fueled altercation. The case report, however, never directly addresses the structural issue: with their supervisory eunuchs stationed far from the duty station at the Yuanming Yuan, it would be nearly impossible for them to oversee the day-to-day, let alone the nighttime, activities of these rank-and-file eunuchs.95 By this time, it was also possible for supervisory eunuchs to live outside the palace in their own homes, which made it harder still for them to supervise the eunuchs who worked under them.96 Even in situations where there was a supervisory eunuch present, the relative isolation of some Yuanming Yuan duty stations permitted complex incidents of mischief. In 1765 two eunuchs launched an elaborate plot to get revenge on their newly appointed supervisory eunuch. The three worked at a shop on the grounds of the Yuanming Yuan, near the Wall of Sravasti, the Indian Buddhist temple where Qianlong occasionally worshipped. The shop sold religious items to members of the imperial household. When the newly appointed supervisory eunuch took office, he found that several items in the store were broken, and determined to make the two rank-and-file eunuchs pay for them. The two plotted to steal beads from the shop and pin the blame on their new supervisor. To avoid personal involvement, they planned to paste a note on the wall, signed by the god of the Zhanran Shi, the Indian temple, accusing the supervisor of the theft, and revealing as proof that the stolen beads could be found submerged in the water near the Shewei Cheng ferry stop. In order to produce the note, however, they needed to find someone literate to write it, so they approached a cooper they knew in Wanping County. They invited him for tea and food on several occasions, and tricked him into penning disjointed parts of the note (so that he would be unaware of its total meaning). Once their plot was exposed, it was fairly easy to wrest a confession from them. The overall

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lesson of the case, however, was still clear: that these eunuchs, working at their Yuanming Yuan duty station, had great autonomy. When they wished to bribe the cooper, for instance, they invited him for meals and tea to their duty station, and apparently no one was the wiser. That they were able to involve him in their plot also demonstrates that they had connections with the outside world.97 The growth of territorial mentality in the palace, and specifically at the Yuanming Yuan, is fully evident in a 1783 incident, when the eunuch Zhang Zhong was murdered in a fight. The proximate cause was a fight over crabs, but the underlying conflict was between two groups of eunuchs living at different duty stations in the Yuanming Yuan. One group served at Xieqi Qu, an important three-story edifice in the Western-style palaces; the other served at Shizi Lin, a rock garden interspersed with buildings that lay just over a hillock to the south. Neither group lived with their supervisory eunuchs. In the Western-style palaces, to the north of the Luosi Arch (Luosi pailou) lay a ditch connected by a culvert to the river outside, through which crabs sometimes crawled in. The murder occurred when two of the Xieqi Qu eunuchs began fighting with one another because one of them had invited eunuchs from Shizi Lin to come catch crabs together. The case is replete with territorial preoccupations. A eunuch from Xieqi Qu reports in his confession that he yelled at the eunuchs from Shizi Lin, “What are you two doing here? This is not your place. Why don’t you go back?” Whereupon another yelled, “You don’t belong here, and you shouldn’t be here at night.” Following the same logic, the chief minister of the Imperial Household Department concluded that by leaving their places at Shizi Lin, the guilty eunuchs had effectively caused the murder.98 Eunuchs sometimes used the mechanism of the imperial household disciplinary system to bring harm to other eunuchs whom they considered to be outsiders. In one case that was brought to imperial household officials, a eunuch who had been temporarily assigned to another station was caught stealing an old coat. Had the perpetrator been an insider at the station, given that it was only an old coat the theft might have been reported only to the supervisory eunuch, who would not likely have reported it further. He simply would have disciplined the offender on his own, rather than risking the involvement of imperial household officials.99 C O N C LU SIO N : G A M B L I N G A S A R E F L E C T IO N O F AU T O N OM Y

Writing in 1877, G. C. Stent noted, “All eunuchs gamble, and spend most of their leisure time in that occupation.” He reported a common expression among them: “If we do not like gambling, we have no pleasure.”100 So central was gambling in the lives of eunuchs that, as Melissa Dale has noted, its persistence as a headache for emperors testifies both to how common it was and to eunuchs’ abilities to

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manipulate their environment.101 Episodes of gambling continued throughout the Qing, and emperors inveighed against it, or made rules prohibiting it, with notable regularity. Gambling cases that came before the officials of the Imperial Household Department exhibit some important patterns that substantiate and coincide with many of the trends noted in this chapter. Before the late Qianlong period, recorded cases of gambling were invariably small in scale. Consider a case from 1751, relatively early in the Qianlong reign. One hot July day, several of the eunuchs who worked in one of the imperial vaults were bored with no work to do. One of them remembered that a eunuch who had died had left them some dice, so they decided to gamble, with the amounts wagered ranging from forty to fifty wen. A eunuch who had come to retrieve items from the vault saw what they were doing and reported the matter. In his analysis, Yūnlu was careful to point out that their supervisory eunuch was not himself involved, although he would be punished for neglecting his duties.102 This small infraction of the rules against gambling seemed dramatic enough that the chief eunuch issued a memorial to the emperor about it, which was reprinted in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces.103 By the late Qianlong era, gambling took place among eunuchs on a much higher scale, reflecting a palace world that was at once more open and more territorial. Gambling cases reveal large-scale, well-institutionalized games involving eunuchs from many different duty stations, including princely households and temples. Some were carried on in plain sight in the palace (reflecting a palace that was less the emperor’s), and some were held in the city (reflecting eunuchs’ greater abilities to come and go from the palace). They also involved eunuchs from across the hierarchy, including supervisory eunuchs and even, in one case, a chief eunuch. One gambling case from the last decade of the Qianlong reign illustrates the world created by Qianlong’s management of his eunuchs. The case involved a thirty-one-sui eunuch named Liu Jin’an, who was employed in the Yongshou Gong in the Forbidden City, a residence for imperial concubines. Financially successful, he lived just outside the palace, in his own house on Kuaiji Si Alley. One day he left work in the palace to deliver some kudzu-hemp cloth to a tailor shop on behalf of his supervisory eunuch, who was having some summer clothes made. He happened upon two of his friends, who invited him to stop in a teashop, and then to a secret gambling den where they joined two others (a gambler and a player who served as banker [chou tou]). Liu proceeded to win forty thousand cash and arranged a morning for him to come collect his winnings. Lying to his supervisory eunuch that his mother was ill, he went to receive the money, but he ended up gambling again, which left him twenty-four thousand cash in debt to the others. He wasn’t sure when he could repay them, and for a while at least they refused to let him leave. Rather than repay them, he turned them in and confessed his own complicity, hoping for leniency from the Imperial Household Department.104

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Liu Jin’an’s excuse for requesting leave—that his mother was ill—fits well with what was established in chapter 8: that eunuchs, regardless of the activities in which they were involved outside the palace, deployed a small set of excuses to request leave or explain their absences from the palace. The case is also revealing because it demonstrates Liu’s connections with the world outside the palace. Having substantial freedom to come and go from the palace, he had gotten to know the other men involved in the case, none of whom was a eunuch. These cases paled in comparison with others that would come to light in the Jiaqing period, when massive gambling rings began to be uncovered. These were held at casinos (dubo chang), and had dozens of participants.105 One that attracted considerable attention from the Imperial Household Department was that of a eunuch with the very common name Zhang Xi, but better known by the nickname “Phoenix-Eye Zhang.” The case came to light in 1809, when Zhang was fifty-five sui. The details of his personal life confirm the subtle patterns of eunuch management that had begun in the Qianlong period. Zhang was one of the growing number of weimin eunuchs—eunuchs returned to commoner status—in his case, because of a putative eye disease that seemed to come and go when convenient. He was also one of the successful eunuchs who moved his family to Wanping—thus availing himself of the loophole that allowed him to stay in Beijing after leaving service. Zhang would confess that he had organized gambling parties for eunuchs that were held outside the palace, at the establishment of someone surnamed Zhao, who lived near the Dongsi Arches area (on the eastern side of the city) and in the White Temple—a fact that reinforces the assertion earlier in this chapter about the importance of temples as eunuch refuges. When investigators subjected Zhang to harsher interrogation, they learned that he had, at various times, owned gambling establishments on the outside, in areas to the north and south of the city where few eunuchs lived. Investigators therefore suspected that his clients included eunuchs and ordinary people. Zhang confessed that when he organized gambling, at least in the Forbidden City, only eunuchs attended.106 Over several consecutive days the investigators subjected Phoenix-Eye Zhang to enhanced interrogation, twisting his ears and making him kneel on chains (guilian). As he revealed the names of his fellow gamblers, additional memorials were submitted to the emperor, naming names. Zhang said so many eunuchs had gambled in his establishments over the years that he could not remember them all; the lists that emerged, however, contained the names of eunuchs from all walks of Beijing society, and included those of eunuch-monks. Many of the eunuchs worked at offices that were known for providing good incomes, such as the Southern Study, the Imperial Tea Office, and the manufactories. Some were from princely households. At least one was a chief eunuch, and many were supervisory eunuchs.107

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Among the most important facts that Phoenix-Eye Zhang disclosed, for our purposes, was that his gambling activities had begun in the last years of the Qianlong reign, in 1791 or 1792.108 It was then that many subtle factors of Qianlong eunuch management came together: the carefully crafted but deeply flawed system of oversight, the more open and more territorial palace—all of it built around Qianlong’s particular sensitivities, and his sense of which lines eunuchs could not cross. Qing eunuchs were able to create this new world, and a high degree of agency for themselves, in the interstices of Qianlong’s rules.

Conclusion

This book has followed the twists and turns of Qing eunuch management during the Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong reigns, separating published rules and imperial rhetoric from the realities of day-to-day practices. We have observed the manifold ways in which eunuchs responded to those rules and practices, navigating through and around them to find new opportunities for enrichment and even, occasionally, empowerment. This study exposes something of the fascinatingly complex relationship between eunuch and emperor. Emperors, the most powerful men in their universe, could, and sometimes did, exercise total control over their eunuchs. Kangxi’s order that the eunuch he referred to as “Little Monkey Liu” be locked up indefinitely is only one example. Another was Yongzheng’s quiet banishment of eunuchs to life imprisonment at Weng Shan, probably because of their misdeeds in the succession scandal. In the face of what was an inescapable power dynamic, however, that relationship, as this book has shown, was not quite so simple. A range of unspoken factors placed limits on imperial control over eunuchs. For one thing, emperors needed eunuchs, and if word traveled back to the eunuch counties south of the capital that the palace was a terrible place to work, where a cruel emperor could lock you up for life, fewer men and boys would agree to serve, and fewer parents would encourage their sons to serve. Emperors perpetuated, as we have seen, the myth that only the desperate became eunuchs (for it was in this way that they justified the institution), but in reality even the desperately poor had choices. In the archives one sees the full range of options: selling oneself into slavery for a given period, begging, stealing. Castration was already a high price to pay for admission to the palace.

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Horrible working conditions would only make the job still less attractive to potential recruits. Court opinion, too, exerted an influence on the exercise of an emperor’s power over his eunuchs. Emperors fretted over court opinion to differing degrees. Of the rulers studied here, Yongzheng worried about it most—perhaps because of his experience in the succession scandal, perhaps because of the contours of his complex personality. Other emperors claimed to worry less about what their eunuchs thought; whether they truly did is a matter for debate. As this book demonstrates, there were also factors that limited an emperor’s ability to be generous toward his eunuchs, the greatest of which was the shared memory of the Ming. Qing emperors, ruling in the aftermath of the greatest excesses of eunuch power, were compelled to show they were forever on guard against a recurrence of this age-old peril. This required emperors to manage eunuchs with the specific set of tough principles we have called the “gold standard” of eunuch management. Of the emperors presented here, Yongzheng was most willing to openly disregard those principles. Shunzhi, Kangxi, and Qianlong flouted them, in different ways, in practice, but adhered to them in their rhetoric. The gap that emerged between the rhetoric and the reality of eunuch management was striking. Kangxi and Qianlong, for example, would repeat the old cliché that they used eunuchs only for menial cleaning duties—in this way asserting that they adhered to the gold standard of eunuch management—when in reality each allowed eunuchs important functions in their households and even, in Kangxi’s case, government. A R EV I EW O F T H E C HA P T E R T H E M E S

The book began, in chapter 1, with an examination of the sources of the common wisdom of eunuch management and how it was perpetuated. The three scholars who were the focus of that chapter lived in the wake of the Ming–Qing transition and, to varying extents, came from families that were directly harmed by Ming eunuch power. Well known as the three greatest thinkers of their age, they articulated a consensus on the nature of eunuch power and its role in the rise and fall of dynasties. Their consensus was built from previous scholarship about eunuchs and from their readings of history, but they also drew upon their personal experiences. Taken together, their ideas came to constitute the gold standard for eunuch management. Having laid the groundwork for the historical understandings of the best practices in eunuch management, in chapter 2 we turned to the brief reign of the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644–1661), the first Qing ruler to occupy the Forbidden City. Historians have long debated the role of eunuchs in his reign. Some have seen in Shunzhi a relapse into the excesses of the Ming, as epitomized by his creation of a

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set of eunuch offices called the Thirteen Yamen, which seemed to replicate hated Ming-palace eunuch institutions. Other historians have seen in the Thirteen Yamen a limitation and not a replication of Ming eunuch power, in part because the number of these offices was reduced from their Ming heights, and because Shunzhi seems to have reduced the overall number of eunuchs in his palace. A central yet elusive figure in Shunzhi’s palace was the eunuch Wu Liangfu. In some sources, he has appeared as a powerful and usurping eunuch, much in the mold of a late-Ming eunuch. Reliable sources about him are, however, virtually nonexistent. Chapter 2 also reexamined eunuch management in the Shunzhi reign by sidestepping the Thirteen Yamen and Wu Liangfu issues, about which there is little surviving archival information, and examining instead other Shunzhi-era features of eunuch management. These establish beyond a doubt that Shunzhi did indeed reempower eunuchs, so soon after the Ming fall. This history has been obscured by historians’ overreliance on the Qianlong-era imperially sponsored palace history entitled A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, which presents Shunzhi as the ruler who began the Qing tradition of sternly managing eunuchs. While glossed over in the official palace history, Shunzhi’s mistakes would serve as a caution to subsequent rulers. In chapters 3 and 4 we turned to Shunzhi’s son the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662– 1722), a ruler long thought to have cracked down on eunuch power. He is traditionally viewed as having used the Manchu institution of bondservants—men hereditarily enslaved to the Qing rulers—to manage eunuchs, and to take over the role of trusted imperial agents traditionally assigned to them. He also abolished the Thirteen Yamen, and replaced them with the much more modest Office of Eunuch Affairs or Jingshi Fang. Even as the verdict on Shunzhi’s use of eunuchs has been debated, Kangxi’s changes have been credited with decisively eliminating eunuch power. The reality, however, is much different. At the very center of Kangxi’s government was a small coterie of eunuchs who were among his most trusted advisers. Some were men who had served him since they were children. Having much in common with Ming eunuchs, they stand as proof that Kangxi did not preside over a strong break from the Ming where eunuch governance was concerned. He portrayed his eunuchs as men with very limited powers, but especially as he aged and grew infirm, the influence of some of these eunuchs increased dramatically. Chapter 5 recounted the fierce battle for succession during the last decade of Kangxi’s reign, in which several of his sons used their eunuchs as their foot soldiers, confidential agents, rumormongers, and thugs. Yet at times, as we saw, they were even more. When Kangxi’s son Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735) came to the throne, he would say that there were eunuchs who were not subservient to his brothers, but instead powerful figures who had lured them into wrongdoing. The chapter suggests that, even as he vowed to conceal the role of eunuchs in the succession for

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the sake of his family, Yongzheng was scarred by what eunuchs had done to and for some of his brothers. Rather than crack down hard on eunuchs, however, Yongzheng, ever in search of more rational ways to run his government, created systems to manage them that focused on motivating them to work harder. In chapter 6, we observed him improving their working conditions, rewarding them for good performance, creating a fund for their rainy-day needs, and endowing a temple and cemetery for them on the western side of the city. He understood that there were evil eunuchs, but he also noted the existence of hardworking eunuchs who, having toiled for decades in the palace, were then turned out with nowhere to go. Finding effective ways to reward the latter and punish the former was the great challenge and achievement of his palace management. Chapters 7 through 9 explored eunuch management in the reign of Yongzheng’s son Qianlong (r. 1736–1795). This long-reigning emperor could not abide what he considered his father’s lenient treatment of eunuchs, but neither could he violate the norms of filial piety and openly criticize him for that leniency. A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces would praise Yongzheng for being stern with eunuchs, while Qianlong quietly backtracked on his father’s innovations. It was not that Qianlong had especial disdain for eunuchs. Instead, his gripe was with his father’s departure from what Qianlong understood to be the gold standard of eunuch management. Qianlong’s areas of disagreement with his father’s management of eunuchs and his maneuvers to make their management conform to more traditional norms are the subjects of chapter 7. Qianlong felt particular pressure to be strict with eunuchs because he understood that the age in which he lived was a glorious and prosperous one, and a time of prosperity, he believed, could lead to complacency, and complacency could lead to the ceding of power to eunuchs. Because of their reliance on A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces, historians have—mistakenly, in my view—considered Qianlong to be a ruler who succeeded in his drive to keep eunuchs under tight control. On the surface, he did appear to succeed. Eunuchs got into occasional fights, and murders sometimes resulted. They ran from the palace, or overstayed their leaves. They stole from each other or, every once in a while, from the palace itself. Generally, however, the guilty were found and punished, and there were no major eunuch scandals, save possibly the case of the eunuch Gao Yuncong, briefly described in chapter 9, who was accused of leaking the contents of the emperor’s notes to an official. This period of seeming quiet, however, concealed a sea change in eunuch life. Committed in his rhetoric, and to a certain extent in his belief, to keeping eunuchs under tight control, Qianlong was tacitly allowing them more freedoms. Specifically, he allowed them to find ways to augment their salaries and even grow wealthy. They became involved as never before in business enterprises outside the palace. He also ignored the

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small ways they found of making money within the palace, such as the tips they earned for allowing supplies into the kitchens. Over the decades of Qianlong’s reign there were also subtle and sometimes notso-subtle changes in eunuch management. He kept to his bright lines around issues of keeping eunuchs apart from politics, education, and the drafting of edicts, and he believed much of the rhetoric about eunuch management for as long as he sat on the throne. Over time, however, the system he built to oversee his eunuchs became increasingly formulaic. The Imperial Household Department’s investigations into eunuch wrongdoing grew routine, and eunuchs’ excuses more formulaic. Eunuch confessions, which were the heart of the system, grew short and hollow. In part, this was because of Qianlong’s increasing workload and perhaps decreasing energy over the course of his long reign, but there were other factors at work, and a degree of passive intentionality. Qianlong needed to make the job of being a eunuch more appealing because, as we saw in chapter 7, a eunuch shortage was growing—partly one of his own making: the number of eunuch duty stations had grown with Qianlong’s expansion of the imperial household; and the emperor’s preference for young eunuchs to fill his beloved Yuanming Yuan raised the demand for new recruits in their teens and early twenties. This demand was behind the order that young eunuchs be regularly sent in from the princely households to the palace, and older eunuchs sent out from the palace to the princely households, as well as salary increases and other inducements. Qianlong, constrained by society’s Confucian imperatives against openly encouraging more men and boys to become eunuchs, as we learned in chapter 8, was compelled to become ever more creative. Late in his reign, with the collaboration of his powerful chief household minister, Hešen, the emperor quietly ordered two rather strange things: that sons of rebels, and of murderers who killed more than “three or four” members of a family, if younger than sixteen sui, be castrated and sent into palace service; and that those who castrated themselves or had the operation done without authorization could enter palace service if it could be shown that their motivation was poverty. The former change, in particular, brought a large number of healthy young eunuchs, albeit many the sons of rebels and mass murderers, into palace service. Chapters 8 and 9 demonstrated how the movement of eunuchs changed palace life. Qianlong adhered to the notion that eunuchs should not be sent as imperial emissaries from the palace, but the quiet movement of eunuchs through the city became routine. Rather than working in one palace all their lives, eunuchs moved about. Boy eunuchs were welcomed into the palace service, but were allowed to return home to their families at night. Or they might begin service at a princely household, but then be sent into the palace as adolescents. As they aged, they were moved between palaces and assignments, to make room for younger men. With

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the imperial household stretched between palaces as never before, eunuchs were frequently sent on missions between palaces by their supervisory eunuchs, and told simply to return when their jobs were done. Princely households, and temples sprinkled throughout and beyond the city, became important strongholds and places of empowerment for eunuchs. Eunuchs maintained connections through the city of Beijing that facilitated their participation in businesses—the pawnshops, restaurants, and stores they would open. In the end, it was these connections and business enterprises through which eunuchs achieved a new form of power in the later Qing. Most sources tell us that eunuchs became powerful at dynasty’s end because of the rise of female power under the Empress Dowager Cixi, or perhaps a bit earlier due, essentially, to the loss of dynastic vigor. Both interpretations point to the usual logic of dynastic decline and the master narrative of eunuch power. In reality, the characteristics of late-Qing eunuchs had originated in the dynamics of Qianlong-era eunuch management. Denied a role in governance, eunuchs turned to commerce and connections. That, too, brought a measure of power with it. A R R O G A N C E , I N D E P E N D E N C E , A N D E N T I T L E M E N T: N EW F R E E D OM S

The effects of the Qianlong emperor’s management of his eunuchs would, by the last decade of his reign, be evident in a world of eunuch excess. An imperial household now fully stretched between palaces gave eunuchs greater freedom to come and go, with only the approval of their supervisory eunuchs required. Because of the wide discretion conferred upon supervisory eunuchs, rank-and-file eunuchs who successfully cultivated their superiors could leave the palace often, stay out for long periods, and even live on the outside. The lives they led outside the palace, as we have seen, could enrich them, despite the low salaries Qianlong insisted on paying. The changes that came to the lives of eunuchs, however, had to do with more than money. Especially by the last decade of Qianlong’s reign, a spate of cases revealed a growing sense of eunuch freedom and autonomy. These developments were the culmination of changes that had taken place over the previous fifty years. Frequently, that growing sense of freedom and autonomy would manifest itself as a species of arrogance that, late in the dynasty, would become synonymous with eunuchs. No case seems to epitomize these changes better than that of a eunuch named Yin Ba, which took place in 1795, the same year in which Qianlong formally abdicated. Yin was known in the palace by the given name Jinzhong, the most common of eunuch names. Castrated at a young age, he worked for the Imperial Wardrobe Vault (Sizhi shi ku), which was one of the most lucrative postings for a eunuch. At the time of this case he was an established eunuch of forty-seven sui, and was in the process of enlarging the house where he lived with forty-year-old Ding Da (a

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man variously described in the documents as his adoptive son, cousin, nephew, or jiaren1), who worked as a veterinarian (in another confession he was described as a common laborer), and their servant, De’er. As his neighbor Zhang Er would describe the events that unfolded, the piece of land on which the eunuch’s house sat was not square, and he wanted to buy Zhang’s land to make it a square piece of property, and presumably to allow himself more room to expand his house. Zhang was, however, unwilling to sell; thus began their dispute. Each party’s account of what happened diverged much more than is usual in the case reports. Zhang would accuse the eunuch of destroying his wall and stealing bricks from it to be used on his own house. He would also allege that the eunuch had spread gossip about him. Zhang lived with his younger sister, a woman who had been betrothed to a merchant many years before. The merchant went off to do business but never returned, and Zhang’s sister had spent her life in chaste widowhood. Now the eunuch was spreading rumors that she had given birth to an illegitimate child, and the story was on everyone’s lips. Even after all this persecution, Zhang said that since Yin Ba was a eunuch he dared not stir up trouble. It was only after he noticed that the eunuch was finishing his roof with forbidden glazed tiles—a clear affront to imperial sovereignty—that he decided to report him to the authorities. The eunuch and his householders countered with the defense that they were not using glazed roof tiles, and that this and the other accusations were false. Ding Da also felt obliged to testify that he and Yin Ba were cousins, and that the eunuch was most emphatically not his adoptive father. The case had culminated, as disputes between neighbors always seem to, with the two opponents cursing one another in the yard between their houses.2 The case stands as proof of the new self-confidence and independence of lateQianlong-era eunuchs, yet it also features many of the factors we have described in this book. The relationship between Yin Ba and the man he lived with is left vague, and the two are emphatic only that the relationship is not one of adoptive father and son; this fit well with Qing sensitivities, as adoption of sons was frowned upon in the Qing because of the problems it had caused in the Ming. Yin Ba also worked in the palace under the most common eunuch name, demonstrating how Qing eunuchs used common names as means to empowerment. Yin Ba also enjoyed the liberties Qianlong allowed his eunuchs. He had managed to obtain a position in the palace where good money could come his way, and had used that money to gain the freedom to live on the outside. What is also striking is the arrogance with which Yin Ba asserted his rights over his neighbors, confident that they were intimidated by what would be perceived as his official status. In this way, his case is reminiscent of that of Wei Zhu, who arrogantly enlarged his house near Kangxi’s grave.3 The case of another arrogant eunuch, named Zhou Xiang, is also highly illustrative, because it demonstrates the role of the princely households by the end of the

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Qianlong period. As shown in chapter 8, these were important sites for Qianlongera eunuchs because of the relative ease with which they could come and go from them. Zhou had worked for a time in the household of Prince Li, but then ran to another princely household until they expelled him. Since he was not a palace eunuch he simply joined the ranks of weimin taijian (eunuchs who had returned to commoner status) living freely in the city. Wandering one day around Qianmen, he hired a cart to go to the Guangning Gate. He got drunk and was unable to pay his fare, so the cart owner insisted he pawn his shirt to pay, which he did. Afterwards he regretted giving in to the cart driver’s demands, so he went to the police to claim he had left money on the cart, which was then stolen by the cart driver.4 A case like this one, in which a runaway eunuch had the effrontery to show up at the police station to press charges, would have been unimaginable in the early Qianlong reign, but was not uncommon by the end of the eighteenth century. Another fascinating case reflecting the new freedoms won by Qianlong’s eunuchs is that of Wang Jinxi, a seventeen-sui eunuch who studied in the palace puppet-theater school, and who got into trouble during the last years of the Qianlong reign. In his case, however, he used the freedom to leave the palace for sexual rather than financial reasons. His confession reveals the three liaisons he pursued with men he had gotten to know while staying in the city, and in one case by visiting a bathhouse. His life on the run entailed time spent in a temple near Tianqiao (outside the Zhengyang Gate); at his parents’ house, where he frequently stayed; at an inn; and in abandoned houses. As with other eunuchs who acquired a degree of freedom, Wang began his career in a princely household—in this case, one occupied by the iron-capped prince Yalanga (?–1794).5 Though the crime he was accused of was overstaying his leave on the outside, the lengthy confessions extracted from him and others were meant to show the severity of his crime. By engaging in sex with other men while outside the palace, he showed that he was not remaining humbly focused on his job. The attainment of more personal freedom is evident in another case—that of a eunuch named Wang Jinyu, who had worked for a succession of princely households and was working at the time of the case for the household of Prince Su. He had permission to live outside the prince’s household, and shared a house with his mother inside the Chongwen Gate. He worked at the prince’s household daily but returned home in the afternoons, and had a side business selling satchels. His mother was elderly, so he hired a woman, He-Liu, to help care for her, and since Wang was a eunuch the two shared the kang (the raised, heated sleeping platform common in North China). As it happened, however, Wang was not fully bereft of desire, so in the night he attempted to seduce He-Liu, but she resisted him, and they fought frequently. Later, after his mother died, he bought a slave girl, and proposed that the three of them should sleep together, which only led to further conflict.6

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The lives of eunuchs such as Wang Jinxi and Wang Jinyu were focused on the achievement of personal desires. That the new lives of eunuchs outside the palace, and their connections with Beijing people, could bring harm to the dynasty, however, became unmistakably apparent in 1813, just a dozen years or so after the death of the Qianlong emperor. In that year, a group of millenarian rebels, relying on connections they had built with palace eunuchs, gained entrance to the Forbidden City in what became known as the Eight Trigrams uprising of 1813. These eunuchs, at the moment of the rebellion’s start, opened the palace doors to the rebels.7 Although the uprising of 1813 was quickly crushed, it was a wake-up call to the Jiaqing emperor (r. 1796–1820), who put in place a series of draconian measures.8 Eunuchs were allowed to go home only in grave emergencies, such as the severe illness or death of a close relative. When leaving the palace, they had to travel in groups of three, and use a system of passes.9 Bribes and gambling (the latter key to networking) were made punishable by death.10 Contacts with merchants in nearby Wanping County were curtailed. The row of shops at the Yuanming Yuan, where eunuchs sold wares to members of the imperial household, was closed, as were the many shops that had been opened by eunuchs or their relatives near the Yuanming Yuan, where bannermen living in the area came to drink and gamble.11 These stern measures, though spelled out in the prescriptive literature, had only limited effect. The archives contain no records of their being enforced. Even just a year after the Jiaqing crackdown, a corrupt employee of the Haiyun granary, by the name of Zhao Si, was found to have ties with eunuchs in two princely households, and to have had meals with a palace eunuch at Wang Ba’s restaurant on Nanchizi Street. Zhao was purportedly responsible for a range of wrongdoings, including, possibly, heterodox martial arts.12 Despite Jiaqing’s crackdown, by 1819 a community of eunuchs was living independently outside the main gate of the Yuanming Yuan, continuing to exploit the networks and empowerment strategies their predecessors had developed.13 As the nineteenth century progressed, eunuchs formed ever more powerful and pervasive social networks for gambling and opium use.14 When Jiaqing died in early September 1820, his second son succeeded to the throne to reign as the Daoguang emperor (r. 1820–1850). In his pronouncements at least, Daoguang tightened control over his eunuchs substantially. In reality, however, eunuchs continued to enjoy and expand the freedoms they had won in the Qianlong reign. The elements of that power were the same: they emanated from the greater freedom that came from temples and princely households, from the financial benefits that came from the businesses they owned, and from the networks they established with Beijing people. Daoguang’s eunuchs relied on a palace that was at once more porous and more territorial, and that provided them with opportunities to supplement their salaries. When wrongdoing emerged, it was of the same nature as what had occurred in the Qianlong period, but on a much grander scale.

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One illustrative case is that of Chen Jinchao, a sixty-eight-year-old eunuch who worked as a gardener at the Yuanming Yuan. He had taken sick, however, and so had permission to live outside (residing at Dong Dayuan, in Haidian) while his illness abated. Chen had become fiercely devoted to Buddhism some years before, and would frequently visit temples, to which he donated large sums. He had donated money to the Juesheng Temple, and had also purchased a share of ownership in the Zhengguo Temple in the Western Hills. When he determined that he would live in the Zhengguo Temple (in order to better recover from his illness), the abbot, incensed by his arrogance, refused him admission. Enraged, the eunuch returned with his nephew, three or four servants, and a gun.15 Chen’s case was no equal of that of the eunuch Li Dexi, whose extraordinary pattern of wrongdoing was exposed near the middle of the Daoguang reign. Li was a palace eunuch who had permission to live outside, and owned a house on Jian’gan Alley. He had maneuvered himself into a lucrative position purchasing materials for the imperial household, from which he was able to amass even greater wealth through, among other ways, illicit connections with contractors. He also used moneylending—the tried-and-true means through which eunuchs built wealth— and bought land and houses to rent. Furthermore, he opened a plant nursery, which his siblings ran, and which employed forty to fifty workers.16 None of this differed in kind from what Qianlong-era eunuchs had done; it differed only by degree. After the Daoguang reign, eunuch excesses would grow yet more extreme, but the patterns established in the Qianlong era continued to be evident in them. Eunuchs had Qianlong to thank for proscribing a specific set of activities while allowing them the latitude to move outside those parameters. Even Li Lianying, the most famous of late-Qing eunuchs, observed those strictures. He hid his literacy, refused to accept a promotion above the fourth rank, and, despite what many court miscellanies report, was known for wealth rather than power.17 We close, however, not with the famous Li Lianying but with another eunuch, one whose name has been lost to history. When he was found dressed in rags and hanging from a tree near the Xibian garrison, the coroner judged him to be well over sixty. It was clearly suicide, but with no identification on the eunuch’s person, the coroner could not ascertain his identity. Based on the man’s tattered clothes, he could conclude only that he was impoverished. Having no alternative, the chief minister sent notice to the Imperial Household Department and all princely households to try to find out the who the eunuch was. Though his story ends here, he stands as a stark reminder of the careless nature of Qianlong-era eunuch personnel records. Even more important, he stands as testimony to the fact that Qianlong’s changes to eunuch management helped some eunuchs only. For those who could not make it in this new world, life was tougher and sometimes not worth living.18

notes

A B B R EV IAT IO N S

Printed Sources DOMB DOT DQHDSL ECCP GCGS GJTSJC QDGZXXZL-GX QDGZXXZL-JQ QSG

L. Carrington Goodrich and Chao-ying Fang, Dictionary of Ming Biography Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China Kun’gang et al., Da Qing huidian shili Arthur Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period Ortai, Zhang Tingyu, [Yu Minzhong], et al., Guochao gong shi Jiang Tingxi et al., Gujin tushu jicheng Qinding gongzhong xianxing zeli, Guangxu ed. Qinding gongzhong xianxing zeli, Jiaqing ed. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao Archives

GCA GSA LFZZ NWFLW

Grand Council Archives. Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taibei Grand Secretariat Archives. Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taibei Lufu zouzhe ᙕ೫৉ኹ. Palace memorials, Grand Council copies. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing Neiwu fu laiwen փ೭ࢌࠐ֮. Lateral communications involving the Imperial Household Department. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing 237

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NWFZA

NWFZXD

ZPZZ

Neiwu fu zouan փ೭ࢌ৉ூ. Palace memorials from the Imperial Household Department. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing Neiwu fu zouxiaodang փ೭ࢌ৉ᔭᚾ. Expenditure records of the Imperial Household Department. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing Zhupi zouzhe ธ‫ޅ‬৉ኹ. Imperially rescripted palace memorials. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing Qing Dynasty Reigns

DG GX JQ KX QL SZ TZ XF XT YZ

Daoguang (1821–1850) Guangxu (1875–1908) Jiaqing (1796–1820) Kangxi (1662–1722) Qianlong (1736–1795) Shunzhi (1644–1661) Tongzhi (1862–1874) Xianfeng (1851–1861) Xuantong (1909–1911) Yongzheng (1723–1735)

Dates in Chinese-language sources are presented parenthetically, in the following format: [reign abbreviation] [year].[month].[day]. An “R” before the month indicates an intercalary month (runyue ၱִ). Qing Shilu The Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), the “veritable records” of Qing reigns from 1643 until 1850 (here listed chronologically), are cited in the notes as follows: Shizu Zhang huangdi shilu (cited as Shizu shilu) covering the Shunzhi reign. Shengzu Ren huangdi shilu (cited as Shengzu shilu), covering the Kangxi reign. Shizong Xian huangdi shilu (cited as Shizong shilu), covering the Yongzheng reign. Gaozong Chun huangdi shilu (cited as Gaozong shilu), covering the Qianlong reign. Renzong Rui huangdi shilu (cited as Renzong shilu), covering the Jiaqing reign. Xuanzong Cheng huangdi shilu (cited as Xuanzong shilu), covering the Daoguang reign. I N T R O D U C T IO N

1. There were also notorious Ming eunuchs who preceded Wei. Wang Zhen (d. 1449) used flattery and collusion with officials and the heir apparent to kill his enemies. He became famous for the “disastrous incident at Tumu,” in which he convinced his young emperor to lead a foolhardy campaign against the Oirat Mongols. DOMB, 1348; Fang Junshi, Jiao xuan suilu, xulu (Qing printing, 1872; xulu, Qing printing, 1891; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1995, 1997), 4.160, no. 192; Frederick W. Mote, “The T’u-mu Incident of 1449,” in Chinese Ways in Warfare, ed. Frank A. Kierman and John K. Fairbank (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

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Press, 1974), 243–72. Liu Jin, described as cruel and cunning, became the nucleus of a group of eight eunuchs known as the “Eight Tigers.” They distracted their young emperor with a variety of amusements while they built a power base in the government. Gifts to Liu became mandatory, and he became staggeringly wealthy. When the Wall Street Journal listed the fifty wealthiest people of the millennium, he appeared along with the likes of Bill Gates, Cosimo de’ Medici, John Jacob Astor, and Cornelius Vanderbilt. Rachel Emma Silverman, “Rich & Richer: Fifty of the Wealthiest People of the Past 1,000 Years,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 1999, R6. 2. Zheng He, the eunuch admiral who lived during the reign of the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–1424), was a loyal official whose seafaring voyages extended Ming influence. 3. Yuan Shikai himself would describe the process, just after the fall of the Qing. See J. J. Matignon, Les eunuques du Palais Impérial à Pékin, vol. 5 of La Chine hermétique: Superstitions, crime et misère (Souvenirs de biologie sociale), 5th rev. ed. (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1936), 209–10. 4. James Legge, trans., The Works of Mencius (repr., New York: Dover, 1970), 500. 5. The process was often repeated in Ming and Qing sources, and was used to explain the rise of Wei Zhongxian. See, e.g., Chen Zilong, Ming jingshi wenbian (completed, 1638; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1962), 499.4843. 6. In the Han dynasty, eunuchs created a play farmyard where the emperor could frolic naked with his concubines, while the eunuchs played the roles of farm animals. GJTSJC, 23.45, citing the work Shiyi ji. Ming eunuchs allegedly hated it when the emperor studied with his Confucian erudites, and would find excuses to interrupt. GJTSJC, 630.35, citing the work Ming waishi. 7. For a more precise definition of yin and yang, see Susan Brownell and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, “Introduction: Theorizing Femininities and Masculinities,” in Chinese Femininities / Chinese Masculinities: A Reader, ed. Susan Brownell and Jeffrey Wasserstrom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 26. 8. Quoted in Chen Zilong, Ming jingshi wenbian, 83.643. 9. “Zhan yang,” Shijing no. 264. The translation, with modifications, is from James Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics, vol. 4, The She King; or, The Book of Poetry (Hong Kong: Lane, Crawford & Co., 1871), 561. 10. Guang Fu, Shi tong zi wen (Taibei: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1983), 350. 11. Xu Zhiyan, Shiye yewen (1917; repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1972), xia, 17. 12. Xu Ke, Qing bai lei chao (1917; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 265–66. 13. For Li Lianying, see Huang Hongshou, Qingshi jishi benmo (Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian, 1986), 69.352. 14. The statement is attributed to Ci’an, co-regent for the Tongzhi and Guangxu emperors. Xu Zhiyan, Shiye yewen, shang, 137. 15. Lei Li, Huang Ming da zheng ji (introduction dated 1632; repr., Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe, 2002), 2.42. 16. DQHDSL, 1216.1095 (SZ 12). 17. The quotation is from the Xiaojing, in Zhongkan Songben shisanjing zhu shufu jiaokan ji, ed. Ran Yuan (repr., Taibei: Yiwen Yinshuguan, 1965), 1.11. 18. Legge, Works of Mencius, 313. 19. Zhang Gang, “Taijian ‘Li Lianying’ haishi ‘Li Lianying,’ ” Dushu wenzhai 10 (2008): 51. This article argues that the spelling Li Lianying, without the grass radical, is correct. The

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author suggests that Confucian historians feminized Li Lianying’s name to ridicule him (and to point out his essential feminine nature). 20. Marquise de Fontenoy, “News and Gossip of Other Lands,” Washington Post, July 15, 1900, 6. This article announced that the death had taken place six or eight weeks prior. The newspaper Shen pao reported that there were rumors of his death around this time, and reports that an elaborate funeral had taken place. The paper sent a reporter to the palace to inquire, who learned that Li was alive and working as usual. “Ren yan za xin,” Shen pao, May 23, 1900. 21. Huang Hongshou, Qingshi jishi benmo, 67.335. 22. Li suggested a bounty of one hundred ounces of gold for each head of a foreigner, and one thousand ounces of gold in the case of well-known foreign headmen, predicting that all foreigners would then be dead within a few days. Xu Zhiyan, Shiye yewen, 138. 23. In addition, it was said that Cixi and Li often dined at the same table, a true violation of protocol, and that Li refused to rise in the emperor’s presence. Li Xisheng, Gengzi guo bian ji (Qing printing, 1902; repr., Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe, 2002), 10. 24. QSG, 482.13302 (biography of Wang Xianqian). 25. See, e.g., “Tancong: Wei Zhongxian yu mou taijian,” Dalu bao 7 (1904): 49–50. 26. Alexander Woodside, “The Ch’ien-lung Reign,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 9, part 1, The Ch’ing Dynasty to 1800, ed. Willard J. Peterson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 295. Qianlong’s order to compile his palace history was first issued in 1742, to Ortai and Zhang Tingyu. Both died before the project could be completed, Ortai in 1745 and Zhang Tingyu in 1755. At Qianlong’s order, Yu Minzhong took over in 1761. 27. Staff members at the First Historical Archives in Beijing tell me that, as best they can determine, only a few such documents survive. 28. See, e.g., Chang Te-ch’ang, “The Economic Role of the Imperial Household (NeiWu-Fu) in the Ch’ing Dynasty,” Journal of Asian Studies 31, no. 2 (February 1972): 243–74. The author concludes about the Qing: “Thus there was a sharp contrast between the Ming and its successor. The eunuchs in the Qing Court were put under surveillance, their behavior was watched, and their pay was rigidly regulated. The four sets of rules issued by Qianlong served as a check to their every movement. In these circumstances they were reduced to a group of depressed persons. Their condition was such that in Qianlong times few would come to fill the vacancies.” Ibid., 250. 29. Much of the material in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces was compiled from other normative texts, such as the various collections of palace rules and institutions, or zeli. 30. Pamela Kyle Crossley, “Review Article: The Rulerships of China,” American Historical Review 97, no. 5 (December 1992): 1471. She continues, “This role itself can be interpreted as an organism incorporating not only the emperor personally but also his lineage; the rituals he performed; the offices for management of his education, health, sexual activity, wardrobe, properties, and daily schedule; the secretariats that functioned as extensions of his hearing in the form of intelligence gathering and expedited memoranda; the editorial boards that functioned as extensions of his speech in the generation of military commands, civil edicts, imperial prefaces to reprinted or newly commissioned literary works.” 31. Bradly W. Reed, Talons and Teeth: County Clerks and Runners in the Qing Dynasty (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 3.

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32. For a survey of this literature, see Joan C. Chrisler and Donald R. McCreary, Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology (New York: Springer, 2010), 483. 33. Notably, eunuchs’ life spans were likely not affected by their castration. Hai-Lu Zhao, Xun Zhu, and Yi Sui, “The Short-Lived Chinese Emperors,” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 54, no. 8 (2006): 1295. 34. NWFZA, 0322 (JQ 19). In 1762 a saddle maker harbored two escaped eunuchs. The court accepted the statement he made in his confession that he did not know they were eunuchs. GSA, 155072 (QL 27.8.17). 35. NWFZA, 0489 (JQ 6.6.14). He was castrated at the age of thirty-six sui, and this runaway occurred five years later. 36. See, e.g., NWFZA, 0012 (QL 2.3.9). 37. In a study of the remains of two Ming-dynasty eunuchs, one of the skeletons showed failure of the epiphysis to close, with the authors concluding that castration had taken place before puberty. The skeleton is long limbed when compared with others of that era; the eunuch likely stood over six feet tall. Jacqueline T. Eng, Quanchao Zhang, and Hong Zhu, “Skeletal Effects of Castration on Two Eunuchs of Ming China,” Anthropological Science 118, no. 2 (2010): 107–16. 38. Records of huge eunuchs put into guard duty occur throughout history. The work Qian Qin lu describes a eunuch named Shen Xiang, who was supposedly thirteen and a half feet tall. Besides being a giant, he was hugely strong and a powerful archer. At each meal he would eat one shi of rice and thirty jin of meat. GJTSJC, 350.44. 39. One example is in NWFZA, 0539 (JQ 13.11.9). 40. NWFLW, 2122 (QL 29.1). 41. NWFZA, 0449 (QL 58.11.16). 42. G. C. Stent, “Chinese Eunuchs,” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Shanghai), n.s. 11 (1877): 177. 43. Zha Shenxing, Ren hai ji (Qing printing, 1851; repr., Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe, 2002), shang, 16. 44. NWFLW, 2301 (DG 29.4.28); NWFLW, 2288 (DG 25.3.22). 45. Guan Xiaolian, Qu Liusheng, Wang Xiaohong, and the staff of the First Historical Archives, Kangxi chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1996), no. 1661. 46. Stent, “Chinese Eunuchs,” 178. 47. See, e.g., the case of the eunuch Zhang Feng, who fled to the south. His accent was the giveaway. LFZZ, 01397 (QL 30.7.25). 48. Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 180. 49. Dong Yiran, “Cong shike taben cailiao kan Mingdai Jingcheng huanguan de chong Fo zhi feng,” Tonghua shifan xueyuan xuebao 25, no. 3 (2004); Ke Xiaorong, “Mingdai huanguan yu Fojiao,” Nankai xuebao, no. 1 (2000): 3; Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian (Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe, 1993), 62–63. 50. Shi Xuan et al., Jiu jing yishi (Ming); Jiu jing suoji (Qing); Yanjing zaji (Qing) (Republican printing, 1938, c. 1932, 1925; repr., Beijing: Beijing Guji Chubanshe, 1986), 124; Zhao Shiyu and Zhang Hongyan, “Heishanhui de gushi: Ming Qing huanguan zhengzhi yu

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minjian shehui,” Lishi yanjiu, no. 4 (2000): 137; Li Zongwan, Jingcheng guji kao (Beijing: Guji Chubanshe, 1981), 38. See also Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 180. 51. Vincent Starrett, Oriental Encounters: Two Essays in Bad Taste (Chicago: Normandie House, 1938), 12. 52. The temple is located on the grounds of Babaoshan, the cemetery to the revolutionary martyrs. 53. Jingyin si bei (jing 5798), in Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–1991), 69.83. 54. QDGZXXZL-GX, taijian, 4 (TZ 8.8.11.), 13.64a. 55. NWFZA, 0322 (Jiaqing 19). 56. They were referred to as weimin taijian (eunuchs returned to commoner status). See NWFZA, 0015 (QL 2.R9.22). 57. On the special skills of these gardeners, see Albert Mann, “The Influence of Eunuchs in the Politics and Economy of the Ch’ing Court, 1861–1907” (MA thesis, University of Washington, 1957), 56. On the flower festival, see Dongyue Miao xianhua shenghui bei ji (jing 1026), in Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, 69.87. 58. Zhang Zhongchen, “Yige taijian de jingli: Huiyi wo de zufu ‘xiaodezhang,’ ” in Tianjin wenshi ziliao xuanji (Tianjin: Tianjin Renmin Chubanshe, 1981), 146. 59. Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian, 11. 60. Lang Ying, Qi xiu lei gao (Qing printing, 1775; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1981), 13.194. 61. Yongzheng prohibited bannermen from becoming eunuchs. DQHDSL, 1216.1091 (YZ 2). See Jonathan D. Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 13. 62. See, e.g., Beijing Municipal Archives, 196.1.15, 196.1.30. 63. Frederic E. Wakeman, The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 1:454n103. 64. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Kangxi qijuzhu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 3.2108. 65. On the sula, see Edward J. M. Rhoads, Manchus & Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861–1928 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 33 (see also n. 67); and Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 168. 66. See NWFZA, 0023 (QL 3.10.3), for baitanga hired to train dogs and falcons. 67. This was not unique to the Qing. In the Ming, eunuchs of the Bells and Drums Office staged plays for the emperor, mimicking the lives of peasants engaged in harvesting and in paying taxes. The goal in having these plays presented was to keep the emperor and especially his children aware of the hard lives of peasants. Shi Xuan et al., Jiu jing yishi, 11–12. 1 . “A T I M E O F P U R E Y I N ”

1. Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China, rev. ed. (Los Angeles: UCLA Asian Pacific Monograph

Notes to Pages 27–31

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Series, 2001), 364. See also Ying-shih Yü, “Some Preliminary Observations on the Rise of Ch’ing Confucian Intellectualism,” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 11, no. 1 (1975): 105–46. 2. I have found no direct evidence of Qianlong’s attitude toward these three men. They are not mentioned in his various commentaries on historical sources, such as Qianlong et al., Lidai tongjian jilan (1768, repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1990). Certainly one clue of his attitudes can be found in the handling of their works in the Siku Quanshu project—the massive Qianlong-sponsored compendium of books that included the editors’ judgment on the books and their authors (and excluded those deemed offensive). See the discussion in He Lingxiu et al., Siku jinhuishu yanjiu (Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1999), 89, 107, 130; and in R. Kent Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Ch’ien-lung Era (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1987), 116–17. 3. Mao Yigong, Lidai neishi kao (1615; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1995), pref., 4. 4. Ann Waltner, “T’an-yang-tzu and Wang Shih-chen: Visionary and Bureaucrat in the Late Ming,” Late Imperial China 8, no. 1 (June 1987): 105. The author cites Ray Huang, 1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982), 65, which refers to Wang as “the prose writer of the century.” 5. Wang Shizhen, Zhongguan kao (repr., Chengdu: Bashu Shushe, 2000), 1.132. 6. Ibid., 1.123. Wang also pointed to other seemingly innocuous moves that became bad precedents, such as the custom of awarding titles to the fathers of eunuchs. Ibid., 1.127. 7. Kenneth James Hammond, “History and Literati Culture: Towards an Intellectual Biography of Wang Shizhen (1526–1590)” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1994), 273–74. 8. ECCP, 817. 9. Ian McMorran, The Passionate Realist: An Introduction to the Life and Political Thought of Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) (Hong Kong: Sunshine Book Co., 1992), 14. 10. Wang Fuzhi, Yongli shilu, in Wang Fuzhi, Chuanshan yi shu (Qing printing, 1842, 1865; repr., Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1999). 11. On Ma Shiying, see Frederic E. Wakeman, The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 1:5. 12. Biography of Li Guofu in Wang Fuzhi, Yongli shilu, 25.3581. 13. Biography of Wang Kun in ibid., 25.3581–82. 14. McMorran, Passionate Realist, 1. 15. Ibid., 80–81. 16. Ibid., 161–62. 17. The Book of Changes is an ancient divinatory text organized by six-lined diagrams called hexagrams. Each hexagram is made up of a combination of solid (yang) and broken (yin) lines. 18. Wang Fuzhi, Zhou yi nei zhuan, in Chuanshan yi shu (Qing printing, 1842, 1865; repr., Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1999), 1.19. 19. Wang Fuzhi, Shang shu yin yi, in Chuanshan yi shu (Qing printing, 1842, 1865; repr., Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1999), 4.497. 20. Ibid., 4.498.

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Notes to Pages 32–36

21. Wang Fuzhi, Zi zhi tong jian zhi tong jian (repr., Zhengzhou Shi: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1994), 26.1262–63. 22. Wang Fuzhi, Du tong jian lun (Qing printing, 1865; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2013), 7.182–83. 23. Wang Fuzhi, Zi zhi tong jian zhi tong jian, 7.277. 24. Ibid., 7.279. “If it was so difficult to keep such virtuous officials from consorting with eunuchs,” Wang Fuzhi asks rhetorically, “how much more so was it difficult to keep ordinary people from doing so?” 25. Ibid., 24.1160; Wang Fuzhi, Du tong jian lun, 8.220. 26. Wang Fuzhi, Zi zhi tong jian zhi tong jian, 7.281. See also Wang Fuzhi, Du tong jian lun, 8.222. For more information on his attitude toward the origins of factions, see Wang Fuzhi, Zi zhi tong jian zhi tong jian, 7.279–81. 27. Wang Fuzhi, Du tong jian lun, 19.555. See the extensive discussion of Wang Fuzhi’s ideas on the flattery of the xiangyuan, the “Sanctimoniously Orthodox scholar,” in McMorran, Passionate Realist, 51–52. 28. ECCP, 351. 29. Huang Binghou, Huang Lizhou xiansheng nianpu (repr., Beijing: Beijing Tushuguan Chubanshe, 2006), 649–51. See Huang Zongxi’s biography of his father in Huang Zongxi, The Records of Ming Scholars, ed. Julia Ching and Chaoying Fang (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1987), 249–52. 30. William Stewart Atwell, Ch’en Tzu-Lung (1608–1647): A Scholar-Official of the Late Ming Dynasty (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1975), 46; ECCP, 352. 31. Lynn Struve suggests that Xing chao lu, Huang’s account of the southern courts (perhaps actually compiled by his followers), may contain at least some of his own experiences. Lynn Struve, “Uses of History in Traditional Chinese Society: The Southern Ming in Ch’ing Historiography” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1974), 72–73. 32. ECCP, 352. 33. Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince, trans. William Theodore de Bary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 169. 34. On the living standards of ordinary Ming eunuchs, see Shih-shan Henry Tsai, The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996), 7; and David M. Robinson, Bandits, Eunuchs, and the Son of Heaven: Rebellion and the Economy of Violence in Mid-Ming China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), 35. For the very large estimate of numbers of Ming eunuchs, see Ding Yi, Mingdai tewu zhengzhi (repr., Beijing: Qunzhong Chubanshe, 1983). 35. Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn, 168. 36. Ibid. In Huang’s opinion, a ruler should be satisfied with several tens of eunuchs. Ibid., 169. 37. “Xunfu Tianjin you Qianduyushi Liu Xian Feng Gong shendao beiming,” in Huang Zongxi, Nanlei Wen Ding qianhou sansiji (Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1936), 5.51. 38. Ibid. On this incident, see Wang Chunyu and Du Wanyan, Mingchao huanguan (Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1989), 222. 39. Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn, 166. 40. Ibid., 107.

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41. See letter of Ying-shih Yü to William Theodore de Bary in ibid., 177–78. Ying-shih Yü cites Chen Yinke and other sources. Lü Liuliang would criticize Huang Zongxi for his acceptance of Manchu rule later in life. See W. L. Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer, Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature, Harvard East Asian Monographs, vol. 250 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 14. 42. Willard J. Peterson, “The Life of Ku Yen-Wu (1613–1682),” pt. 1, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 28 (1968): 119–20. 43. It is unclear whether these events had already taken place when Gu and Kou met. In all likelihood they had, since the uprising was in the third month of the year. 44. See “Zhongxian daifu Shanxi Anchasi fushi Kou gong muzhiming,” in Gu Yanwu, Tinglin yuji (repr., Taibei: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1967), juan 1. For background on these events, see Peterson, “Life of Ku Yen-wu,” pt. 1, 125–26; and Charles O. Hucker, “Su-Chou and the Agents of Wei Chung-Hsien, 1626,” in Two Studies on Ming History, Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies 12 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1971), 41–83. 45. “Zhongxian daifu Shanxi Anchasi fushi Kou gong muzhiming,” 156. 46. Peterson, “Life of Ku Yen-Wu,” pt. 1, 142. 47. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, 50–51; R. Kent Guy, “The Development of the Evidential Research Movement: Ku Yen-Wu and the Ssu-k’u Ch’uan-Shu,” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 16, nos. 1–2 (1984): 97–116. On Gu’s travels, see Zhao Gang’s “Gu Yanwu bei you shi ji fa wei,” Qing shi yanjiu, no. 2 (1992): 45–50; in it, Zhao uses newly discovered sources to shed light on Gu’s experiences in the north. 48. See Zhao Gang, “Gu Yanwu ‘Yu Huang Taichong shu’ xin zheng,” Lanzhou Daxue xuebao 4 (1985): 17–18. For an English translation of Gu’s letter to Huang, see Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn, 170–71; the point of disagreement was over the ideal location for the capital. 49. Zhao Gang, e-mail message to author, December 8, 2010. 50. Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu (Qing printing, 1695, 1834; repr., Taibei: Wenshizhe Chubanshe, 1979), 13.286. 51. Ibid., 13.287. Unlike Wang Shizhen, however, who saw these missions as military in nature, Gu saw them as diplomatic missions. 52. On this practice, see Angela Ki Che Leung, “Organized Medicine in Ming–Qing China: State and Private Medical Institutions in the Lower Yangzi Region,” Late Imperial China 8, no. 1 (1987): 134–66. 53. Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu, 13.287. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 56. See Gu Yanwu, “Zhongguan dianbing,” in Ri zhi lu, 13.287–89. 57. In his preface to the Ming Calendar, Gu also approvingly quotes Song Lian, who said that eunuchs should be limited to sweeping only. Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu, 13.287. 58. Ibid., 13. 59. Ibid., 13.292. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid., 13.286.

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Notes to Pages 40–45

62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., 13.292. 64. Ibid., 13.293–94. 65. The date is uncertain. 66. See sources cited in his chronological biography: Zhou Kezhen, Gu Yanwu nianpu (Suzhou: Suzhou Daxue Chubanshe, 1998), 516. 67. Ibid., 250. The letter to his nephew may be referred to in ibid., 513. 68. Gu Yanwu and Liu Jiuzhou, Xin yi Gu Tinglin wenji (repr., Taibei: Sanmin Shuju, 2000), 248. 69. Ibid. For “castrated person” Gu uses the term huozhe (lit., “one who has been burned with fire”) because originally this practice was done using fire instead of cutting. In another work, Gu notes that the phenomenon also took place in Luchuan (in Yunnan), where officials castrated boys, ostensibly so they could be sent in for court service when in fact these notoriously evil officials kept them for their own household use. See Gu Yanwu, “Zhan Ying lunzheng Luchuan Zhuanglue,” in Tianxia junguo libing shu (repr., Shunan: Tonghua Shuwu, 1879). 70. Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn, 169. 71. Gu Yanwu, Huang Rucheng, and Huang Kan, Ri zhi lu jishi (repr., Taibei: Shijie Shuju, 1968), 9.124. 72. Tang Zhen, Qian shu (Qing printing, 1705; repr., Beijing: Guji Chubanshe, 1955); T’ang Chen, Écrits d’un sage encore inconnu, trans. Jacques Gernet (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), 345. See also Richard von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 222–23. 73. Tang Zhen, Qian Shu, 167–70; T’ang Chen, Écrits d’un sage, 275. Tang actually credits his friend Wei Shuzi (Wei Xi), a well-known author, with the suggestion. 74. Tang Zhen, Qian shu, 170; T’ang Chen, Écrits d’un sage, 275–77. 2 . T H E SH U N Z H I E M P E R O R A N D H I S E U N U C H S

1. On Shunzhi’s plaque, cast from iron, see Shizu Zhang huangdi shilu (hereafter Shizu shilu), in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 115.899 (SZ 15.2.26); GCGS, 3; DQHDSL, 1216.1095; Ha Enzhong, “Shunzhi huangdi yanjin taijian ganzheng de chiyu,” Lishi dangan, no. 3 (2015); and Hu Jianzhong, “Shunzhi Tiepai,” Zijin cheng, 1984, 14. Ha reports that three plaques were cast. 2. See Jonathan D. Spence, Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 112–13; Jonathan D. Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 329; Jerry Dennerline, “The Shun-chih Reign,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 9, part 1, The Ch’ing Empire to 1800, ed. Willard J. Peterson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 73–119; and Robert B. Oxnam, Ruling from Horseback: Manchu Politics in the Oboi Regency, 1661–1669 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 250. 3. GCGS, pref. 4. Ibid. 5. Oxnam, Ruling from Horseback, 50. 6. Shizu shilu, 144.1105 (SZ 18.1.7). The edict is reprinted in QSG, 5.161–63. Robert Oxnam discusses the will in detail; see Oxnam, Ruling from Horseback, 52–62.

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7. This position may be traced to Zheng Tianting, Tan wei ji (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980), 3.466. See also Frederic E. Wakeman, The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 2:1013–14. 8. Zheng Tianting, Tan wei ji, 95; Wakeman, Great Enterprise, 2:1014. 9. This view can be traced to Meng Sen. See his Qing chu san da yi an kaoshi (1935; repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1966), 144. See also ECCP, 257. This is also the position taken by Preston Torbert, although he leaves room for the possibility that Shunzhi may have circumscribed eunuchs’ roles slightly. Preston M. Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department: A Study of Its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662–1796 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1977), 23–24. 10. One source notes that Wu Liangfu knew how to win the favor of the Shunzhi emperor because he had experience serving the Ming, but cites no sources. See Ji Lianhai, Shuo Kangxi (Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe, 2007). Blog entries and other Internet sources agree, but I have found no concrete evidence. 11. Wakeman notes, “There is no question that the eunuch Wu Liangfu played a very important role behind the scenes in mustering official support for the throne against Dorgon’s supporters in the Assembly and bureaucracy.” Wakeman, Great Enterprise, 2:931. 12. ECCP, 257. 13. Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 305n12. Cf. L. C. Arlington and William Lewisohn, In Search of Old Peking (1935; repr., New York: Paragon, 1935), 382. 14. For an excellent discussion of Meng Sen, see Madeleine Yue Dong, “How to Remember the Qing Dynasty: The Case of Meng Sen,” in The Politics of Historical Production in Late Qing and Republican China, ed. Tze-ki Hon and Robert Culp (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 271–94. 15. Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History, a New Manual (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), 9, 42–43. The Records from the Eastern Gate was so titled because its first compiler was an official of the State History Office, or Guoshi Guan, which was situated inside Donghua Gate (the eastern gate of the Forbidden City). See also Knight Biggerstaff, “A Note on the Tung-hua lu and the Shih-lu,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 4, no. 2 (1939): 101–15. 16. See Meng Sen, Qing chu san da yi an kaoshi, 144. For evidence, Meng Sen relies on the self-authored chronological biography (nianpu) of Wang Xi, one of the most important members of Shunzhi’s inner circle. This work is included in Wang’s collected works. See Wang Xi, Wang Wenjing Gong ji (repr., Jinan: Qi Lu Shushe, 1997). Using this and some other sources (which unfortunately have not survived), Meng proves that illness kept Shunzhi from attending New Year’s rituals, and that he died of smallpox. 17. Meng Sen, Qing chu san da yi an kaoshi, 36–43. See also Oxnam, Ruling from Horseback, 65–66. 18. The most substantive discussion I have seen in a Qing-era source is Wang Qingyun, Shiqu yuji (Qing printing, 1888; repr., Changsha: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1967), 3.1a-b. 19. The decision to use eunuchs in military defense was not unusual in the context of the late Ming. One fascinating example was the eunuch Pang Tianshou, who served the Ming and went on to become a follower of the Prince of Gui. In 1653, as the Yongli court fled westward through Guangxi, forces led by Pang surprised Qing forces under the command

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Notes to Pages 48–49

of General Li Yingshao. Pang’s forces were numerically superior: his two hundred boats at first prevailed against Li’s ten. In the end, though, the Qing won, and the forces loyal to the Yongli emperor were pushed farther westward. GSA, no. 005993 (SZ, n.d.). See Ming Qing shiliao - bingbian (Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1936), 9.856. For more information on Pang Tianshou, see Dong Shaoxin, “Mingmo fengjiao taijian Pang Tianshou kao,” Fudan Xuebao—Shehui kexue ban 1 (2010): 35–44; Huang Yinong, Liang tou she: Mingmo Qingchu de diyi dai Tianzhu Jiao tu (Xinzhu: Guoli Qinghua Daxue Chubanshe, 2005), 557; Ray Huang, “The Lung-ch’ing and Wan-li Reigns, 1567–1620,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 1, ed. Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 692; and Lynn A. Struve, The Ming– Qing Conflict, 1619–1683: A Historiography and Source Guide (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 1998), 304–5. Pang Tianshou would eventually betray the prince. Dong Shaoxin, “Mingmo fengjiao taijian Pang Tianshou kao,” 40. Pang Tianshou was a Christian. He was baptized Achilles some time before 1630, and was a powerful force for bringing Christianity to the Yongli court. He wrote two letters to Pope Innocent X seeking help for the Ming cause, and also urging the pope to send more missionaries. For a translation of one of these letters, see E. H. Parker, “Letters from a Chinese Empress and a Chinese Eunuch to the Pope in the Year 1650,” Contemporary Review 101 (January/June 1912): 80–83, which provides a clear sense of how much power Pang Tianshou had acquired. On the last days of Yongli, see Lynn A. Struve, Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: China in Tigers’ Jaws (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 177–78. 20. On the history of the name of this gate, see Sun Donghu, “Beijing diming de weisu ciyuan juyu,” Zhongguo lishi dili luncong 23, no. 3 (2008): 32–34. 21. GJTSJC, 256.26, quoting the work Ming waishi. 22. Wang Xianqian, ed., Donghua lu (completed, 1892; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), SZ 33.663. The incident is also recorded in Shizu shilu, 130.1005 (SZ 16.11.15). Xie Zhengguang (Andrew Hsieh) writes that this story is confirmed in several different sources. Xie Zhengguang (Andrew Hsieh), “Xin jun jiu zhu yu yi chen: Du Muchen Daomin ‘Bei you ji,’ ” Zhongguo shehui kexue, no. 3 (2009): 192. In 1660, Chongzhen chose his highly favored official Wang Xi to compose a funerary inscription for the eunuch. Wang Xi, Wang Wenjing Gong ji, nianpu, 751. Wang Xi himself visited Wang Cheng’en’s grave, and composed a poem to commemorate him. Ibid., 6.502. 23. Xie Zhengguang, “Xin jun jiu zhu yu yi chen,” 190, 191. A late-Qing collection of anecdotes about Beijing reports that Cao built a Beijing mansion called Chongyuan Guan, situated at Xinjiekou. By the late Qing, the house had become dilapidated, but there were still stories that his treasure remained buried there. Zhenjun, Tian zhi ou wen (Qing printing, 1907; repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1967), 4.26a-b. 24. See Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 1:264–65n124; Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China, Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), 87; and Harold Kahn, Monarchy in the Emperor’s Eyes: Image and Reality in the Ch’ien-lung Reign (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 13–14. 25. ECCP, 216; Xu Zhiyan, Shi ye yewen (1917; repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1972), 453–54; Zheng Tianting, Qing shi tan wei (first printing, 1946; repr., Beijing: Beijing Daxue Chubanshe, 1999), 66.

Notes to Pages 49–50

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26. Frederic Wakeman notes that when Li Zicheng entered the city he was accompanied by three hundred of his own eunuchs. Wakeman, Great Enterprise, 1:267. These may have entered Shunzhi’s service. On eunuchs who served in Shenyang, see Wang Jinshan, Nei quan zou cao (preface dated 1656; repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1988), 57. 27. The verb “memorialize” is the accepted English term for referring to an official’s act of communicating with the emperor. The documents themselves are termed “memorials.” 28. For biographical information on Hao Hongyou, see Zhu Tingmei and Sun Zhenzong, Kangxi Ba Zhou zhi (repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian Chubanshe, 2006), 8.1b. For biographical materials on Hao Jie, which frequently mention his father (as well as his son, a well-known official), see Xu Shichang, Da Qing Ji fu xian zhe zhuan (Taibei: Da Tong Shuju, 1968), 2.177–84; and Zhou Jiamei and Miao Quansun, Guangxu Shuntian fu zhi (repr., Beijing: Beijing Guji Chubanshe, 1987), 99.5a-b. Hao Hongyou’s funerary inscription describes his father’s achievements in detail, and his son’s desire to emulate them. “Shaanxi Yan’an fu Yanchang xian zhixian Haofu muzhiming,” in Qian Qianyi, Mu zhai chu xue ji (repr., Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1979), juan 52. 29. He mentions eunuchs Du Xun, Ge Siyin, and Bian Yongqing by name, but not Cao Huachun. Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, SZ 3.322. 30. Ibid. His reading of history is inaccurate: there had been many instances of eunuch misdoing through history, and Ming eunuch abuses did not occur only late in the dynasty. Indeed the term xingyu was used in the Han dynasty to castigate eunuchs for incursions into power. Ban Gu, Han shu (Taibei: Dingwen Shuju, 1986), 62.2727. 31. Ivory tiles (yapai) were given to officials obliged to attend court. According to the Shilu, the proposal was accepted. Shizu shilu, 10.101 (SZ 1.10.14). 32. As Torbert notes, the period of Dorgon’s regency “witnessed a spate of edicts which prohibited the eunuchs from handling the income from the imperial estates (1644), from participating in court audiences (1645), and from going to the capital to seek employment (1646).” Torbert, Ch’ing Imperial Household Department, 22, citing Zheng Tianting, Qing shi tan wei, 65–66. Interestingly, both the Shilu and the edition of the Donghua lu edited by Wang Xianqian contain additional language in Hao Jie’s memorial. I rely on the edition of the Donghua lu edited by Jiang Liangqi because it is considered most accurate. Subsequent versions of the memorial in both the Wang Xianqian Donghua lu (completed in 1892) and the Shilu show the impact of the growing standardization of ideas about eunuch management. Both reveal a standard terminology that would become universal in establishing the gold standard for eunuch management. They give credit to the first Ming emperor for keeping eunuchs illiterate. They also use what would become the standard language for limiting eunuch activities in the palace to spraying and sweeping (sasao). See Shizu shilu, 10.101 (SZ 1.10.14); and Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980), 5.40. 33. GSA, no. 085402 (SZ 5.12.22). This memorial is from the Jiangnan textile eunuch Che Tianxiang, showing that Shunzhi-era eunuchs were empowered to memorialize the throne. Shipments would be made in the spring and autumn, with 279 rolls of silk manufactured each year. 34. GSA, no. 005594 (SZ 11.4.4). 35. Shizu shilu, 12.117–28 (SZ 1.12.27).

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36. GSA, no. 087767 (SZ 9.5.7). 37. GSA no. 089707 (SZ 10.3.24). Two years before, Shunzhi had rejected a censor’s suggestion that Ming court attire be adopted. Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 41; Wakeman, Great Enterprise, 1:75. 38. Shizu shilu, 70.549–50 (SZ 9.11.11). 39. GSA, no. 169291 (SZ 11.10.2). 40. DQHDSL, 1216.1094. 41. GSA, no. 088742 (SZ 13.R5.25). This case describes a conflict between two eunuchs over land and slaves; the amount of land in question (866 mu) and the number of slaves (eight) suggest that these were men of means. 42. GSA, no. 205218 (SZ 11.8.22). 43. DOT, no. 1572. Hucker’s description is of the Ming-era office; it is possible that their duties expanded in the Qing. 44. GSA, no. 087441 (SZ 12.6.18). In a case dated December 7, 1656, the court awarded custody of a child to his uncle, the eunuch who raised him, rather than to the child’s remarried mother. GSA, no. 007080 (SZ 13.10.22). 45. GSA, no. 006494 (n.d.). Note that although this memorial is undated, it had to be 1653 or later, because all the memorials of the author (Zhang Bingzhen) are post-1652. 46. Oxnam, Ruling from Horseback, 47. 47. Zheng Tianting, Qing shi tan wei, 61–62. 48. The edict giving Shunzhi formal power was dated February 1, 1651. 49. Silas H. L. Wu, Communication and Imperial Control in China: Evolution of the Palace Memorial System, 1693–1735 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 14. 50. Wakeman, Great Enterprise, 2:851–52. 51. Isobe Atsushi, “Junchicho ni okeru Sokkin Shudan no ichi kosatsu: Nai San’in— Naikaku, Jusangamon o chushin ni,” Ritsumeikan tōyō shigaku, no. 35 (2012): 52. 52. GSA, no. 012311 (n.d.). For a published version, see Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiu suo, Ming Qing shiliao - bingbian, 4.343. 53. Wu, Communication and Imperial Control, 15. 54. As noted in chap. 1, as of the Han dynasty officials were ranked one to nine, with one being highest. Each rank was subdivided into lower and upper, making for a total of eighteen ranks. 55. DQHDSL, 1216.1094; Shizu shilu, 76.601–02 (SZ 10.6.29); GCGS, 2. 56. The original sentence was also incorrect. Nurhaci had indeed used castrated house servants, and ordered the princes to do the same. Wakeman, Great Enterprise, 1:454n103; Zheng Tianting, Tan wei ji, 94–95; Torbert, Ch’ing Imperial Household Department, 22. Wang Jinshan also noted the existence of eunuchs working in Shenyang in the preconquest period. Wang Jinshan, Nei quan zou cao, 57. 57. GJTSJC, 256.31; Zhang Tingyu et al., Ming shi (Qing printing, 1739; repr., Taibei: Dingwen Shuju, 1980), 304.7765; GCGS, pref. 58. Qianlong notes reading a history of the Ming that described the harm eunuchs of the Department of Ceremonial caused by wielding the brush and seals. Gaozong Chun huangdi shilu, in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 1155.469 (QL 47.4.17).

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59. See, e.g., GSA, no. 089707 (SZ 10.3.24). Though written by a eunuch, this memorial, with its fully official-like salutation, is indistinguishable from one that an official would have written. 60. Sun Pei et al., Suzhou zhizaoju zhi (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2015), 3. 61. Zhu Guozhen, Yong chuang xiao pin (Ming printing, 1622; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959), 11.249–50. This was just one episode in the tragic history of the Ming-period Weaving Bureau. For other examples, see Sun Pei et al., Suzhou zhizaoju zhi, 105–6. In the first year of his reign, the Chongzhen emperor abolished the bureau. Ibid. 62. See Man Han mingchen zhuan (Harbin: Heilongjiang Renmin Chubanshe, 1991), 14.404–5. 63. DOT, no. 6888. 64. See Man Han mingchen zhuan,14.404–5; Tiebao, Qinding Baqi tongzhi (Taibei: Taiwan Xuesheng Shuju, 1968), juan 68; and Lü Yaozeng et al., Qinding shengjing tongzhi (Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe,1965), juan 72. 65. GSA, no. 036775 (SZ 11.8.1). 66. QSG, 118.3443. 67. According to Wang Jinlong, of the First Historical Archives, China, few if any archival documents survive from the Thirteen Yamen. E-mail message to author, October 22, 2015. 68. Wang Jinshan, Nei quan zou cao, 35. On his family background, see ibid., 35–36. On his age, see ibid., 79. 69. Zheng Tianting, Qing shi tan wei, 66. The name change more accurately reflected the function of this office, which was in charge of personnel decisions (rather than rituals, as its old name suggested). The name was likely changed because the original was associated with some of the most heinous offenses of Ming eunuchs. 70. Guo was a native of Jintai, Shaanxi; Liu’s hometown is not known. The responsibilities of the office are described in a preface Guo contributed to Nei quan zou cao. 71. E.g., see Wang Jinshan, Nei quan zou cao, 44, 51. He sometimes uses another common term for official, chen. Ibid., 64, 65. He uses the word “eunuch” (taijian) only to refer to the selection of recruits. Ibid., 223. 72. Ibid., 37. 73. See Norman A. Kutcher, Mourning in Late Imperial China: Filial Piety and the State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 74. Wang is here referring to one of the simplest of characters (ding), comprising just two strokes. 75. Wang Jinshan, Nei quan zou cao, 223. 76. Ibid., 225. Since his order is issued to the Directorate of Ceremonial, he is asking that office (headed by Wang Jinshan!) to debate and make a recommendation. 77. Ibid., 55. 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid., 66. 80. Ibid. 81. Ibid., 228 (SZ 13.6.16). 82. Ibid., 242. 83. Ibid., 249–52. 84. Ibid., 234–37.

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Notes to Pages 61–66

85. Ibid., 44. 86. Ibid., 283. 87. The existence of this office, which was a forerunner of the Shenxing Si and was staffed with eunuchs, shows that investigation and punishment of Shunzhi-era eunuchs was done by eunuchs themselves. 88. Wang Jinshan, Nei quan zou cao, 95. For accusations of his alliance with Wu Liangfu, see ibid., 155. 89. Ibid., 100. 90. Ibid., 101. 91. Ibid., 106. 92. Ibid., 148–49. 93. The structure had burned and been rebuilt three times in the Ming (1422, 1514, and 1596) and once in the Qing (1797). Mao Xianmin, “Jiaqing ernian Zijincheng Qianqing Gong shihuo an,” Lishi dang’an, no. 2 (2005): 59. 94. GCGS, 12.20; Yu Minzhong and Zhu Yizun, Rixia jiuwen kao (repr., Beijing: Beijing Guji Chubanshe, 1981), 13.55. 95. ECCP, 118. 96. GSA, no. 012311 (SZ 10.6.29). 97. Shizu shilu, 77.607 (SZ 10.7.4). 98. Ibid., 77.607 (SZ 10.7.5). 99. Ibid., 88.690 (SZ 12.1.9). 100. For an interesting comparison to the reconstruction of another palace building, the Fengxian Dian, see Liu Hongwu, “Zijin Cheng nei Fengxian Dian xiujian gailüe,” Lishi Dang’an, no. 3 (2009): 53–56. 101. This gate is now better known by its colloquial name, Qianmen. 102. On Bahana, see Man Han mingchen zhuan, 14.26–29. 103. Shizu shilu, 118.917 (SZ 15.6.2). 104. Ibid., 91.718 (SZ 12.5.14). On left and right in official titles, see Wilkinson, Chinese History, 257. 105. GSA, no. 120935 (SZ 12.8.10). Tuhai was an important person in the Shunzhi reign, and from an eminent family that could be traced to one of Nurhaci’s close associates. In 1659 Tuhai was sentenced to death. According to ECCP, this was because “of a mistrial, and because he stubbornly argued with the emperor.” His sentence was later commuted to having all his ranks and properties removed. He was restored to power after the death of Shunzhi and became an important military figure. ECCP, 784. Tongyi would be executed after Shunzhi’s death. 106. GSA, no. 120303 (n.d.) and no. 120935 (SZ 12.8.10). 107. GSA, no. 007694 (SZ 12.7.5). The end of the document makes it clear that the messenger was a eunuch. 108. QSG, 244.9623–24. 109. See also Shizu shilu, 92.725 (SZ 12.7.3), which replicates much of Tuhai’s memorial. For further details on Tuhai and the consequences of his soured relationship with Shunzhi, see n. 105. 110. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Qingchu nei guoshiyuan Manwen dang’an bibian (Beijing: Guangming Ribao Chubanshe, 1989), 3:351. For Sonin’s biography, see E’ertai et al.,

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Baqi tongzhi (Changchun: Dongbei Shifan Daxue Chubanshe, 1985), 221.5062. The ancestors of Sonin, a plain yellow bannerman, had been Chahar Mongols. 111. Shizu shilu, 118.917 (SZ 15.6.2). DOT notes that this Nei Guan Jian or Directorate of Ceremonial was transformed into a non-eunuch agency in 1660. See DOT, no. 4205; see also ibid., no. 5237. 112. Shizu shilu, 120.930–31 (SZ 15.8.12). 113. Using exchange price differences, e.g., they were able to extract twenty-five hundred taels of silver from every ten thousand cast. 114. He Zhongshi, Liang gong dingjian ji (repr., Taibei: Yiwen Yinshuguan, 1967). 3 . “ T O G UA R D AG A I N ST T H E I R SU BT L E E N C R OAC H M E N T S”

1. On the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories, see Liu Fengyun, Qingdai sanfan yanjiu (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Chubanshe, 1994); and Tsao Kai-fu, “K’ang-hsi and the Sanfan War,” Monumenta Serica 31 (1974): 108–30. 2. Zheng Tianting, Qing shi tan wei (first printing, 1946; repr., Beijing: Beijing Daxue Chubanshe, 1999), 3, 2, 435; Zheng Tianting, Tan wei ji (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980), 3, 466; Yu Huaqing, Zhongguo huanguan zhidu shi (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2006), 451; Wang Qingyun, Shiqu yuji (Qing printing, 1888; repr., Changsha: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1967), 225; Chang Te-ch’ang, “The Economic Role of the Imperial Household (Nei-Wu-Fu) in the Ch’ing Dynasty,” Journal of Asian Studies 31, no. 2 (February 1972): 243– 74. For discussions of the complexities of the term “bondservants,” see Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 81–84; and Pamela Kyle Crossley, “Slavery in Early Modern China,” in The Cambridge World History of Slavery, vol. 3, AD 1420–AD 1804, ed. David Eltis and Stanley L. Engerman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 202. 3. GCGS, 2.8 (KX 28.3.25). 4. Ibid., 2.8 (KX 28.4). Kangxi held supervisory eunuchs responsible for exposing the wrongdoing. (See the section “A Responsibility System” later in this chapter.) Stent noted the eunuch penchant for gambling: “All eunuchs gamble, and spend most of their leisure time in that occupation. It is their greatest source of enjoyment; as they say, if we “do not like gambling we have no pleasure.” G. C. Stent, “Chinese Eunuchs,” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Shanghai), n.s. 11 (1877): 180. 5. There were other instances in which Kangxi took pride in the poverty of his eunuchs. See the sources cited in note 20 below. There he boasts of his tough eunuch management, and uses his eunuchs’ poverty as evidence of his effectiveness. 6. GCGS, 2.12 (KX 44.2.3). 7. Ibid., 2.7 (KX 21.7.8) 8. Ibid., 2.14 (KX 53.6.17). See also Zhongguo diyi lishi danganguan, Kangxi qijuzhu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 3.2093. 9. GCGS, 2.10 (KX 33.R5.14). See also Shengzu ren huangdi shilu (hereafter Shengzu shilu), in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 163.787 (KX 33.R5.14). The autumn assizes were annual meetings at which the emperor and his seniormost judicial officials deliberated on proposed death sentences. See Robert E. Hegel and Katherine N.

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Notes to Pages 72–75

Carlitz, Writing and Law in Late Imperial China: Crime, Conflict, and Judgment (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), 111. 10. See, generally, Yu Haoxu and Rao Guoqing, Wan Sitong yu “Ming shi” (Ningbo Shi: Ningbo Chubanshe, 2008); and Zhu Duanqiang, Wan Sitong yu Ming shi xiuzuan jinian (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2004). 11. ECCP, 802. The descriptions of Wan’s life given here are based on this essay. 12. For a description and analysis of this examination, see Lawrence D. Kessler, K’anghsi and the Consolidation of Ch’ing Rule, 1661–1684 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 158–66; and Hellmut Wilhelm, “The Po-hsüeh Hung-ju Examination of 1679,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 71, no. 1 (1951): 60–66. Given the absence of recent scholarship, this would seem to be a topic worthy of research. 13. Tu Lien-che stresses the second motive: “In pursuing this course he acted in accordance with a theory to which he was committed—namely, that private historical undertakings are likely to be superior to official ones. Since the latter are often carried out hurriedly by many persons, they are apt to lack coordination and consecutiveness, and sometimes fail to stress the important events of a dynasty.” ECCP, 802. 14. Ibid. For citations of the Ming shi gao in this book, I used the Cornell Library rare edition of that work. For a published version, see Wan Sitong, Ming shi gao (Ningbo: Ningbo Chubanshe, 2008). 15. Wan Sitong, Wan Jiyue Xiansheng Ming yuefu (repr., Changzhou, 1869), 33a. See also Chen Xunci and Fang Zuyou, Wan Sitong nianpu (Hong Kong: Zhongwen Daxue Chubanshe, 1991), xvi. 16. Wan Sitong, Wan Jiyue Xiansheng Ming yuefu, 33a–b. 17. Ibid., 8b–9a. 18. Ibid., 7a–b. The poem is entitled “Xia Lichuan.” On the Tumu incident, see Frederick W. Mote, “The T’u-Mu Incident of 1449,” in Chinese Ways in Warfare, ed. Frank A. Kierman Jr. and John K. Fairbank (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 243–72. 19. Wan Sitong, Ming shi gao, 178.1b. 20. Chen Xunci and Fang Zuyou, Wan Sitong nianpu, 179. 21. Shengzu shilu, 154.700 (KX 31.1.29). Qing Shengzu, Kangxi di yuzhi wenji (repr., Taibei: Xuesheng Shuju, 1966), 1.194. 22. Shengzu shilu, 179.922 (KX 36.1). 23. Ibid., 204.8 (KX 40.5.22). The body had been exhumed and destroyed long before. 24. See Zhang Zhi, Zhongguo feng tu zhi cong kan (Yangzhou: Guangling Shushe, 2003), 167. 25. Wang Huanbiao, Ming Xiaoling zhi (repr., Nanjing: Nanjing Chubanshe, 2006), 57. 26. Ibid., 2.1233. 27. See Qiao Zhizhong, Qingchao guanfang shixue yanjiu (Taibei: Wenjin Chubanshe, 1994), 202. The discussion of the Ming History’s treatment of eunuchs in this and the following paragraphs relies heavily on this work. See also Wang Huanbiao, Ming Xiaoling zhi, 1:416; and Liu Zhigang, “Kangxi i dui Mingchao junchen de pinglun ji qi zhengzhi yingxiang,” Qingshi yanjiu 1, no. 8 (2009): 103–4. 28. Qiao Zhizhong, Qingchao guanfang shixue yanjiu, 202. 29. Ming shi, 304.7765. 30. Ming shi, juan 304, quoted in Qiao Zhizhong, Qingchao guanfang shixue yanjiu, 203.

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31. Ibid. 32. Ming shi, juan 22, cited in ibid., 202. 33. Qiao Zhizhong, Qingchao guanfang shixue yanjiu, 202. 34. Liu Zhigang, “Kangxi di dui Mingchao junchen de pinglun,” 104. 35. That is, Wanli, Taichang, and Tianqi. Wang Xianqian, ed. Donghua lu (completed, 1892. repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), KX 1961–62. 36. Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, KX 90.1784–85. 37. Ibid., KX 71.1611. 38. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Kangxi qijuzhu, 3.2092–93 (KX 53.6.6); see also Shengzu shilu, juan 258. 39. The translation “Office of Eunuch Affairs” follows Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 458. 40. Shi Xuan et al., Jiu jing yishi (Ming); Jiu jing suoji (Qing); Yanjing zaji (Qing) (Republican printing, 1938, c. 1932, 1925; repr., Beijing: Beijing Guji Chubanshe, 1986), 59–60. 41. GCGS, 20.438 (KX 16.5.27). 42. Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian (Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe, 1993), 22. 43. Zha Shenxing, Ren hai ji (Qing printing, 1851; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), xia, 56. Zha Shenxing was a student of Huang Zongxi. 44. Shanghai shudian, Qingdai dang’an shiliao xuanbian (Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian Chubanshe, 2010), 665. 45. Elliott, Manchu Way, 150–52. 46. Shi Xuan et al., Jiu jing yishi (Ming), 59–60, 74. 47. The description of the Jingshi Fang was drawn from Wang Shuqing, “Jingshi Fang,” Gugong bowuyuan yuankan, no. 2 (1979): 64; Rawski, Last Emperors, 165, 181, 334n61; and Yu, Zhongguo huanguan zhidu shi, 451. 48. ECCP, 813. 49. Wang Qingyun, Shiqu yuji, 225; Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian, 14–15; Preston M. Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department: A Study of its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662–1796 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1977), 174. 50. Shi Xuan et al., Jiu jing yishi (Ming), 59–60, 74. 51. DQHDSL, 12.1049. 52. Ibid., 12.1050. On the naming of Weng Shan, see Li Yuchuan, Li Lianying gongting shenghuo xiezhen (Beijing: Changcheng Chubanshe, 1995), 69. 53. Wu Zhenyu, Yangjizhai conglu (preface dated 1896; repr., Beijing: Airusheng Shuzi Huaji Shu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 25.183–84. 54. GCGS, 2.12 (KX 40.3.7). 55. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Kangxi qi ju zhu, 3.2005. 56. Ibid., 3.2014. 57. Ibid., 3.1974. 58. On this fascinating official, who was a member of the Fuca clan, see ECCP, 560–61. Two years following this case, Maci would be disgraced for interfering with the selection of the heir apparent. 59. Zhaoqing, Zongguan Neiwu fu tang xianxing zelii (n.p., 1870), 451.

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4 . T H E I N F LU E N C E O F E U N U C H S I N KA N G X I’ S I N N E R C I R C L E

1. Fang Junshi, Jiao xuan suilu, xulu (Qing printing, 1872; xulu, Qing printing, 1891; combined repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1995, 1997), 4.160, no. 192. 2. One who did so was Wang Zhen, the notorious eunuch behind the disastrous incident at Tumu. (See also chap. 3 in this book.) Ibid. 3. Jiao Hong, Yutang congyu (Ming printing, 1618; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1981), 291. 4. Ming waishi, huanguan zhuan, quoted in GJTSJC, 133.19. See also Lang Ying, Qi xiu lei gao (Qing printing, 1775; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959?, 1961), 14.208. 5. The Tianshun reign was actually the second reign of the Zhengtong emperor, whose first reign lasted from 1435 to 1449. 6. Lu Yi, Bing yi man ji (Ming printing, c. 1540; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, [2002]), 3–4. 7. Zheng Wei, “Mingdai huanguan shijia Liu Ruoyu ji qi ‘zhuo zhong zhi,’ ” Hubei Daxue xuebao (Wuhan University), supp., 2003. The phenomenon of the Confucian eunuch was not limited to Ming times. In the Han dynasty there was a eunuch named Lü Qiang, who was offered a promotion. He declined, giving a speech to the emperor on the harms eunuchs posed to political life. He also decried the practice of emperors bringing too many women into the palace. Fan Ye et al., Hou Han shu (Taibei: Wending Shuju, 1981), 718.2528–31. 8. Fang Junshi, Jiao xuan suilu, xulu, 12.455–57, no. 487, quoting Liu Ruoyu, Zhuo zhong zhi. 9. Fang Junshi, Jiao xuan suilu, xulu, 12.455–57, no. 487. According to Wu Zhenyu (1792– 1870), there was also a Mongol teacher. Wu Zhenyu, Yang Jizhai conglu (preface dated 1896; repr., Beijing: Airusheng Shuzi Huaji Shu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 25.183–84. This source notes that there were “ten or more” students in the school—far less than in the Ming period. 10. Sun Liqiao, “Lüelun Kangxi de yongren sixiang yu shijian,” Lilun tantao, no. 1 (1992): 39 (considering it the most important factor). Wu Qingren, “Kangxi yongren deshi sanlun,” Lishi dang’an, no. 4 (1995): 122 (considering it an important factor). On his principles for selection of officials (with his particular emphasis on virtue), see Qin Zhang and Tie Cao, Kangxi zheng yao (Qing printing, 1910; repr., Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 2012), 9.179–99. 11. Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China: Self Portrait of K’ang-hsi (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), 43; Jonathan D. Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 253–54. The latter work cites several examples of Kangxi reminding his officials that he took no sides between Han and Manchu. “Never,” Spence quotes him as saying, “have I made any distinctions between the Manchus, the Mongols, the Chinese bannermen, and the Chinese people.” Ibid., 254. 12. Spence, Emperor of China, 34–36. On Kangxi’s willingness to use all officials without discrimination, see Wu Qingren, “Kangxi yongren deshi sanlun,” 122–25. 13. On Songgotu, see, e.g., ECCP, 663–66. 14. See, generally, Norman Kutcher, Mourning in Late Imperial China: Filial Piety and the State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 15. Liu Zhigang, “Kangxi di dui Mingchao junchen de pinglun ji qi zhengzhi yingxiang,” Qingshi yanjiu, no. 1 (2009): 106. Liu’s evidence is persuasive. See Qing Shengzu, Kangxi di

Notes to Pages 87–89

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yuzhi wenji (repr., Taibei: Xuesheng Shuju, 1966), 19:1621–22; and Shengzu Ren huangdi shilu (hereafter Shengzu shilu), in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), juan 212 (KX 42.4.23), juan 291 (KX 60.3.15). 16. Wu Qingren, “Kangxi yongren deshi sanlun,” 122; Sun Liqiao, “Lüelun Kangxi de yongren sixiang yu shijian,” 40–41. 17. Zha Shenxing, Ren hai ji (Qing printing, 1851; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), xia, 57. 18. GCA, no. 401001591 (n.d.). 19. Spence, Emperor of China, 96. 20. Silas H. L. Wu, Passage to Power: K’ang-hsi and His Heir Apparent, 1661–1722 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 42, citing QSG, 3942. 21. Spence, Emperor of China, 87; Harold L. Kahn, Monarchy in the Emperor’s Eyes: Image and Reality in the Ch’ien-lung Reign (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 13–14; Frederic E. Wakeman, The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 1:264–65n124. Lawrence D. Kessler notes that Kangxi “learned many of the details of late Ming history from eunuchs who had served the Ming court.” Kessler, K’ang-hsi and the Consolidation of Ch’ing Rule, 1661–1684 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 5. 22. Spence, Emperor of China, 87; Shengzu shilu, 240.391 (KX 48.11.17); Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu, Qianlong ed. (Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 21.196. 23. Bi Yuan and Sima Guang, Xu zi zhi tong jian (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1957), 178.2413. For general background on Lian Xixian, see Frederick W. Mote, Imperial China, 900–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 449. 24. See the example of Zhu Hao, in Zhang Tingyu et al., Ming shi (Qing printing, 1739; repr., Taibei: Tingwen Shuju, 1980), 286.7352. 25. Ibid., 243.6306. Zou Yuanbiao’s biography in DOMB gives further details. See DOMB, 1313. 26. In addition to the eunuchs discussed subsequently, see the case of the eunuch Wang Jinyu, who served Kangxi since boyhood and had transmitted edicts. Yongzheng, too, favored him, and appointed him chief eunuch of the Yangxin Dian—probably the most important eunuch job in the palace. Yongzheng awarded him the sobriquet Wenlinlang— Duke of the Literary Grove, showing that this emperor, too, did not fear eunuch education. Later, Yongzheng appointed him chief eunuch of the Yuanming Yuan, and gave him the additional sobriquet—Chengdelang—Duke Who Holds Virtues. Wang Jinyu bei (jing 5328), in Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushugan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–1991), 69.117. 27. GCGS, juan 2 (KX 16.3.1). 28. For the categories of imperial women, see Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press), chap. 4. 29. On his attention to the seclusion of the womenfolk, see Matteo Ripa and Fortunato Prandi, Memoirs of Father Ripa, during Thirteen Years’ Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China; with an Account of the Foundation of the College for the Education of Young Chinese at Naples (New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846), 174. That book is

258

Notes to Pages 89–93

a partial translation of Matteo Ripa, Storia della fondazione della Congregazione e del Collegio dei Cinesi, sotto il titolo della Sagra Famiglia di G.C. (Naples: Tipografia Manfredi, 1832). I cite the English portions where available, and the original Italian for portions that do not appear in the translation. 30. GCGS, juan 2 (KX 16.3.5). 31. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Kangxi qijuzhu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 3.1721 (KX 27.1.24). For Mingju’s status, see ECCP, 577. Soon thereafter he was demoted for widespread corruption. 32. Spence, Emperor of China, 161, citing Gugong bowuyuan, Zhang gu congbian (Taibei: Guofeng Chubanshe, 1964), 36. 33. Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 180–86, but see esp. app. 3. 34. Chen Hongmo and Xue Tianpei, Miyun xian zhi (repr., Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 2.11. See also Li Hongzhang et al., Guangxu Shuntian fu zhi (repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1965), 24.31a-b. 35. Zong Qingxu and Zang Lichen, Miyun xianzhi (repr., Taibei: Chengwen Chubanshe, 1968), 25.9a–b. 36. Wang Liansheng, “Putuo shan siyuan tonglan,” Fojiao wenhua 3 (2009): 55. 37. Xu Yan, Putuo shan zhi (repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe ed., 2002) 8.57. 38. Gao Keli, Yongzheng shangyu neige (repr., Beijing: Guojia Tushuguan Chubanshe, 2010), 1.4 (KX 61.11.17). 39. ECCP, 689–90. 40. Song Luo, Mantang nianpu (completed, 1713; repr., Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 57. I used “measure” as a translation for qian. One qian equaled one-tenth of a tael in weight. 41. Ibid., 64; for another example, in which Liang Jiugong bestows imperial writings, see Song Luo, Xibei leigao (repr., Taibei: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1973), 25.229. 42. The request from the emperor is carefully and politely worded, making it clear that the poetry need not be written in the emperor’s honor, nor that the calligraphy and poetry were intended as gifts. 43. Song Luo, Mantang nianpu, 45–46. 44. “Shengzu wu xing Jiangnan quanlu (1705),” in Zhenqitang congshu, ed. Wang Kangnian (n.p., n.d.), 14b. 45. Guan Xiaolian, Qu Liusheng, Wang Xiaohong, and the staff of the First Historical Archives, Kangxi chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1996), 89, no. 183. See also Wu, Passage to Power, 61–63. 46. The Yu Qing Gong, or “Rearing in Celebration Palace.” 47. See Wu, Passage to Power. Yūnceng was deposed in 1708, reinstated in 1709, and deposed again in 1712. ECCP, 926–27. 48. See, generally, Spence, Emperor of China, 125–39. 49. Wu, Passage to Power, 104; see also 95, 99, 101, and 212n65. 50. See Wang Xianqian, ed., Donghua lu (completed, 1892; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), KX 82.1709. See also Spence, Emperor of China, 132. The meetings were held at the Changchun Yuan, the gardens in northwestern Beijing that would eventu-

Notes to Pages 93–97

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ally become incorporated into the much larger Yuanming Yuan, primary residence of the Qianlong emperor. 51. For details regarding this document, see Antonio Sisto Rosso, Apostolic Legations to China of the Eighteenth Century (South Pasadena, CA: P. D. & I. Perkins, 1948), 234 and passim. Hesihen was also known as Wang Daohua and Henkama. Ibid., 157. On Zhao Chang, see Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren (Beijing: Xueyuan Chubanshe, 2013), 219–32. 52. Wu, Passage to Power, 210n46. 53. Zha Shenxing, Ren hai ji, 70. 54. This was reported by Cao Yin, bondservant of the Kangxi emperor. Gugong bowuyuan, Guanyu Jiangning Zhizao Caojia dang’an shiliao (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1975), 63 (KX 48.2.8). 55. Li Guangbo, Cao Xueqin ping zhuan (Nanjing: Nanjing Daxue Chubanshe, 1998), 342. 56. GCGS, 11 (KX 39.9.15). 57. Xingyundashi et al., Foguang da cidian (Gaoxiong: Foguang Chubanshe, 1988–1989), 716. 58. Beijing shi dang’anguan, Beijing simiao lishi ziliao (Beijing: Zhongguo Dang’an Chubanshe, 1997), 50. 59. Jingyin si bei (jing 606), in Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushugan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–1991), 66.67–68. 60. See also Li Hongzhang et al., Guangxu Shuntian fu zhi, 16.21b; and Zhao Shiyu, “Minguo chunian yige jingcheng qiren jiating de liyi shenghuo: Ben yiming riji de duhougan,” Huazhong shifan daxue xuebao (Renwen shehui kexue ban) 48, no. 5 (September 2009): 72. 61. Shizong Xian huangdi shilu, in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 45.671 (YZ 4.6.3). 62. Guan Xiaolian et al., Kangxi chao manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi, 1049, no. 2669 (KX 54.8.21). 63. To wit, Jixiang Men, Yongan Ting, and Nan Fu. 64. Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, 232–33. 65. Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, KX 82.1710. (KX 4 7.11.14). 66. NWFZA, 0002 (YZ 11.4.22). 67. After confiscation his properties were sporadically used for the same purpose, with income going to the imperial household. Lands and buildings were confiscated not only from Liang Jiugong, but also from Zhao Chang and from a Kangxi-era person who was so despised he was identified only as “the idiot.” NWFZA, 0071 (QL 13.9.8). 68. NWFZA, 0002 (YZ 11.4.22). 69. Ibid. 70. E.g., the son mentioned in the text also used over twelve hundred taels of Liang Jiugong’s money to redeem two houses in Changping Prefecture. With the rental income, he was able to redeem sixty-nine mu of land. He also used approximately five thousand taels of silver he had gotten from Liang Jiugong to rent forty-six jian of buildings to the commoner Zhang San, asking him to open the Jiruhao Oil and Salt Store. He also lent money to others for interest. 71. Gugong bowuyuan, Zhang gu congbian, 45.

260

Notes to Pages 97–103

72. Xiao Shi, Yong xian lu (completed, 1752; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959), 91. 73. Chen Fu mubei (jing 3043), in Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushugan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, 71.136. 74. Rawski also notes that appointees to these posts were generally kinsmen or banner nobles. Rawski, Last Emperors, 84, citing Zhaolian, Xiaoting Zalu (completed, c. Daoguang period; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980), 93–94, 378–79. 75. Rosso, Apostolic Legations to China, 204–5. For other accounts of the mission, see Pierre-Curel Parisot, Mémoires historiques sur les affaires des Jésuites avec Le Saint Siège (Lisbon [Paris]: F. L. Ameno, 1766), 7:10–34. The latter contains a Latin translation of a Chinese diary of events written by members of the Wuying Dian. 76. Ripa and Prandi, Memoirs of Father Ripa, 117. 77. Rosso, Apostolic Legations to China, 203. 78. Ibid., 209. 79. Ibid., 389–90. Chen Fu bears a verbal message (transmits an order) from Kangxi telling the missionaries not to be too upset over the punishment of Pedrini. Ripa reports: “His Majesty sent a message to us by the eunuch Ching-foo, importing that he had thus spoken in our favour, in order, by making our good qualities generally known, to palliate anything of a contrary nature; and that although he had punished Pedrini, that fact must be considered as a family transaction, for he had behaved toward him as a father to his son, without any publicity.” Ripa and Prandi, Memoirs of Father Ripa, 111. 80. Dinghui si bei (jing 2899), in Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushugan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, 66.163. The stele dates to 1712, with calligraphy by the eminent Wang Zengqi, whose work included “The Imperially Sponsored Thirty-Six Views of Bishushan Zhuang,” Bishushan Zhuang being the summer villa at Rehe. Dinghui Si was located close to Enji Zhuang, the eunuch cemetery discussed in subsequent chapters; it is located in today’s Haidian district of Beijing. We have no corroborating evidence to validate this account of Wei Zhu’s youth. 81. According to Silas Wu, Wei Zhu had served Kangxi since the latter’s boyhood. Wu, Passage to Power, 174. 82. Ibid., 157. 83. Interestingly, Wei Zhu was better acquainted with the heir apparent’s handwriting than was his father, Kangxi. There are several possible explanations for this. One is that Wei Zhu was involved in Yūnceng’s education, and therefore knew his handwriting well. Another possibility is that Wei Zhu conveyed written messages between father and son, which he then read aloud to the recipients. A final possibility is that handwriting recognition was a particular talent of Wei Zhu’s. For confirmation that Wei Zhu was the eunuch who could read the alum-water ink, see Kangxi qijuzhu, 3.2486 (KX 57.1.21). 84. John Bell, Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia, to Diverse Parts of Asia (Glasgow: Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1763), 1:15. Wei also made the ambassador a present of a steel for striking fire. On Kangxi’s love of these mechanical devices, and of clocks in particular, see Catherine Pagani, “Eastern Magnificence & European Ingenuity”: Clocks of Late Imperial China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 59–60. 85. Gugong bowuyuan, Zhang gu congbian, 44. For an explication of the passage (but one that attributes it fully to Kangxi), see Chen Jun, Kong sheng yan pan hua langji: Jingdu ling qu lu (Taipei: Xiuweizi Xunkeji Chuban, 2011). The passage itself reads, in part:

Notes to Pages 103–105

261

Wei Zhu transmitted the order: “From up to now, you have been in charge of Kun and Yi operas, and musical instruments respectively. How can you be free for even one day! Moreover, you have good awards to enrich your families. They could not repay if they are not in charge of the emperor’s grace. [This last sentence may have an erroneous character.] The voice of Kunshan opera should follow the chant, the tonal patterns should be harmonious with the tones, the beats are obvious. The Kun-style opera may be divided into southern and northern forms. Their tones cannot be mixed. If there is a harmony between the tones and the instruments, they form one; if there is a harmony between the hands and feet, the behavior and the movements of eyes, this is the beauty of nature. Yiyang opera has circulated for many years. Since the Nishang in the Tang dynasty was lost, only Zaju of the Yuan [reading baizhong as zaju] were favored. In the Ming dynasty, there was Yuanben. The northern tones of Yiyang numbered in the dozens. Now they are all lost, and only Yi remains. Recently, Yiyang has also been corrupted by heterodox tones, and not even one or two of Yiyang are left among the ten. Only inside the palace, where the tones are taught and remembered by mouth and heart, do they remain undistorted. You should practice more, reading day and night. You should examine the four tones carefully, and derive the musical tones from the words, and derive the principle from the tone.” 86. Wang Xinrui, “Yuan Ming yilai Beijing Yaji Shan daoguan wenhua de lishi kaocha,” Beijing Lianhe daxue xuebao: Renwen shehui kexue ban 4, no. 3 (2006): 34. 87. Kangxi qijuzhu, 3.2469 (KX 56.12.6), 3.2471 (KX 56.12.15). 88. Ripa, Storia della fondazione, 1:487–88; for a partial English translation, see Ripa and Prandi, Memoirs of Father Ripa, 487–88. 89. This is very clear if one compares Father Ripa’s account with those of earlier Jesuit visits described in Parisot, Mémoires historiques. In the earlier visits, Wei Zhu has a relatively minor role to play, and the senior eunuchs are men such as Chen Fu and Liang Jiugong. 90. William Woodville Rockhill, “Diplomatic Missions to the Court of China: The Kotow Question II,” American Historical Review 2, no. 4 (July 1897): 627–31. 91. Although he is not listed by name, this would have been either Boihono or Cai Shengyuan. 92. Spence, Emperor of China, 43. 93. “Un uomo stordito e senza ragione.” Ripa, Storia della fondazione, 2:60–61. 94. Ibid., 2:63. John Bell, also present at this moment, read the events somewhat differently. See Bell, Travels from St. Petersburg, 2:6–7. I follow Ripa’s view because he was more directly involved in negotiations between the parties. 95. One other interesting detail is left to Wei Zhu. Having had enough of Ismailoff ’s frustrating attitude, Kangxi determines to write the count a letter detailing both his offenses and the kindnesses that Kangxi had shown him. Kangxi intends for the letter to be presented in Latin. Wei Zhu negotiates with the European missionaries and determines that it can be in French, and that a father named Parrenin can provide the translation. Ripa, Storia della fondazione, 2:63. 96. Ibid., 2:21–22, 2:36–37. Misunderstanding apparently arose because palace guards overheard Ripa joking with his young male students late into the night.

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Notes to Pages 106–111

97. Zha Shenxing, Ren hai ji. 98. ECCP, 21. 99. It was the edict in which Li Yu requested information on the amount of money given for filial and jinshi commemorative arches—matters clearly outside the proper purview of a eunuch’s duties. 100. Kangxi qijuzhu, 3.2092–93 (KX 53.6.6). 5 . E U N U C H L OYA LT I E S I N T H E YO N G Z H E N G E M P E R O R’ S T R O U B L E D SU C C E S SIO N

1. The latter theory is discussed and refuted by Feng Erkang. See his Yongzheng ji wei xin tan (Tianjin: Tianjin Renmin Chubanshe, 2008), 8. 2. Jonathan D. Spence, Treason by the Book (New York: Viking, 2001), 137; Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1993), 3188 (YZ 7.10.8). 3. Wang Xianqian, ed., Donghua lu (completed, 1892. repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), YZ 2.2001; Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige (completed, 1741; repr., Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 4.25. This edict was promulgated on March 16, 1723, when Yongzheng had been on the throne for seventy-nine days. The household manager was Qin Daoran, whose deposition provides crucial information on the succession crisis. 4. Lešiheng, he said, had already recorded it in the archives, which was contrary to Yongzheng’s will, and for this he would be sentenced to exile in Xining with the emperor’s wayward brother Yūntang. Jiang Liangqi, ed., Donghua lu, Qianlong ed. (Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 25.232 (YZ 1.1). For more on this case, see ECCP, 693–94. Lešiheng was a son of Sunu. 5. This brother was Yūntang, discussed below. Xiao Shi, Yong xian lu (completed, 1752; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959), 4.301. 6. Silas H. L. Wu, Passage to Power: K’ang–hsi and His Heir Apparent, 1661–1722 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 252; Meng Sen, Qing chu san da yian kaoshi (1935; repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1966), 144; Feng Erkang, Yongzheng ji wei xin tan; Wang Zhonghan, “Qing Shizong duodi kaoshi,” Yanjing xuebao 36 (June 1949), also collected in Wang Zhonghan, Qing shi za kao (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1957). 7. Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren: Qingchao huangquan lüetan (Beijing: Xueyuan Chubanshe, 2013). 8. Wu, Passage to Power, 37. 9. Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, 310, quoting a memorial of KX 56.5.17. 10. Guan Xiaolian, Qu Liusheng, Wang Xiaohong, and the staff of the First Historical Archives, Kangxi chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1996), 89 (no. 183). 11. Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, 313. Yūnceng’s son had been raised in confinement with his father. 12. Yang Zhen, “Fei taizi Yūnceng yi jia yu Xian’an Gong,” Zijin cheng 7 (2010): 43. Manduhū’s grandfather was the Shunzhi emperor. Yongzheng would ultimately remove Manduhū’s status as beile, for his failing to see to the punishment of his despised brother Yūntang’s eunuch Li Dacheng. (For further information on the beile status, see n. 45.)

Notes to Pages 111–114

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Shizong Xian huangdi shilu (hereafter Shizong shilu), in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 45.686 (YZ 4.6.28). The special doorway used to check up on Yūnceng is more fully described in Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, 307. 13. Wu, Passage to Power, 81. This was in 1703. 14. ECCP, 924. 15. Wu, Passage to Power, 56. 16. Shengzu Ren huangdi shilu, in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 277.712 (KX 57.1. 21). Kangxi turned against Songgotu, who died in prison in 1703. 17. ECCP, 926; QSG, 220.9060. 18. ECCP, 926; Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 40.247. 19. Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 239. 20. Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu, KX 94.1817 and YZ 8.2230. The incident is also recounted in Wu, Passage to Power, 162. 21. According to the Qijuzhu they were both eunuchs. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.442. See also Yūnlu, Shizong Xian huangdi shangyu baqi (compiled, 1731; repr., Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1983), 4.237. 22. Shizong shilu, 45.669 (YZ 4.6.3). For a better account, see the Qijuzhu, which I quote below. 23. Shizong shilu, 40.591 (YZ 4.1.5). 24. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.442 (YZ 3.2.29). 25. Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), 137. 26. ECCP, 927. Some historians are less cynical about Yongzheng’s motives, seeing him as genuinely interested in winning over Yūnsy. Wu, Passage to Power, 185–86. 27. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.658. 28. Ibid. Some of the characters in the original might be erroneous. 29. Shi Song, ed., Qing shi bian nian (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Chubanshe, 1991), 4.169. Yūnlu, Shizong Xian huangdi shangyu baqi, 3.59. 30. Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 39.239. 31. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.658. 32. Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 40.247. 33. Ibid., 39.239–40. On Nian Gengyao, see R. Kent Guy, Qing Governors and Their Provinces: The Evolution of Territorial Administration in China, 1644–1796 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010), 222–25. 34. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.658. 35. Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 40.247. 36. ECCP, 927; Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 108. See also Wang Zhonghan, “On Acina and Sishe,” Saksaha: A Review of Manchu Studies 3 (1998): 31–36. 37. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.677. 38. Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 48.314 (YZ 4.9.12). Ma’s accomplices were Dase, Changshou, and Cuner. 39. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 5.3491 (YZ 8.2.28). On eunuchs spreading rumors, see Spence, Treason by the Book, 107–8.

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Notes to Pages 114–117

40. Rawski, Last Emperors, 102; ECCP, 929. 41. Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, 364, citing Shizong shilu. 42. Wu, Passage to Power, 127–28. Wu cites Qin Daoran’s deposition in Gugong bowuyuan wenxian guan, Wenxian congbian (repr., Taibei: Guofeng Chubanshe, 1930, 1943), 15, 18. On An San, whom He Yuzhu claimed as his father, see ECCP, 11–13. On Qin Daoran, see Frank Ching, Ancestors: 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family (New York: Morrow, 1988), chap. 16. 43. Yao was entrusted, e.g., with the transmission of notes between Yūntang and his brother Yūntoo. Gugong bowuyuan wenxian guan, Wenxian congbian, 2. Yongzheng would eventually punish him with banishment to the frontier and would order his household wealth and possessions confiscated. Xiao Shi, Yong xian lu, 3.207. 44. QSG, 294.10345. 45. Shizong shilu, 45.685–86 (YZ 4.6.28); E’ertai et al., Baqi tongzhi (repr., Changchun: Dongbei Shifan Daxue Chubanshe, 1985), 177.21a–b; Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, 27.252. On the removal of his beile status, see E’ertai et al., Baqi tongzhi, 177.21a–b; Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, YZ 9.2240; and Jiang Liangqi, Donghua lu, 27.252. Beile was a princely status. See DOT 4526 and Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 80. On the history of the beile, see Pamela Kyle Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 141–43. 46. On the sources of his wealth generally, see Wu, Passage to Power, 128–29; and ECCP, 928. 47. Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, citing Gugong bowuyuan wenxian guan, Wenxian congbian, 30 48. Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, 24. 49. Yongzheng decreed that if He Yuzhu (or other punished eunuchs) found this judgment too harsh, they were free to take their own lives. Xiao Shi, Yong xian lu, 1.63. He Yuzhu and the others took the opportunity of heading into exile to make up stories about Yongzheng. Yongzheng, Da yi jue mi lu (Qing printing, 1729; repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1969), 3.34b; Spence, Treason by the Book, 137; Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, 375. Yongzheng himself reports the amount of He Yuzhu’s wealth. Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, YZ 2.200; Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 4.25 (YZ 1.2.10). 50. Yang Zhen, Licheng, zhidu, ren, 377. 51. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.794. 52. Gugong bowuyuan wenxian guan, Wenxian congbian, 2. 53. Ibid., 22. 54. Ibid., 27 55. Wang Wei and Yuan Birong, Jinshi jiyi: Beike mingwen li de lao Beijing (Beijing: Xueyuan Chubanshe, 2008), 118. 56. Gugong bowuyuan wenxian guan, Wenxian congbian, 25. Li Kun was one of the eunuchs who would end up in the retirement village near the Qing tombs. See also Wu, Passage to Power, 174. 57. Ibid., citing Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng Shangyu neige. 58. Gugong bowuyuan wenxian guan, Wenxian congbian, 25, 174.

Notes to Pages 117–125

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59. Shizong shilu, 45.674 (YZ 4.6.3). 60. Dai Yi, Qing tong jian (Taiyuan: Shanxi Renmin Chubanshe, 2000), 2628. 61. See Wang Shixiang, Shuo hulu / The Charms of the Gourd, trans. Hu Shiping and Yin Shuxun (Hong Kong: Next Publication, 1993). 62. Xin Xiuming, Lao taijian de huiyi (Beijing: Beijing Yanshan Chubanshe, 1987), 3. After the Boxer siege of Beijing, the Eight Nation United Army looted many of these objects. I have hunted around in various museum collections for them. There are some good candidates at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, but none specifically cite a provenance. See also the examples in Wang Shixiang, Shuo Hulu / Charms of the Gourd, showing Kangxi-era examples in the Palace Museum, Beijing. 63. Eunuchs who were sent to guard the tombs of Ming emperors sometimes got into trouble. E.g., in 1680, the eunuch Yang Guozhen, who was sent to guard the Ming tombs, was accused of cutting trees and building a house. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Kangxi qijuzhu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 1.527. 64. Guan Xiaolian, Qu Liusheng, Wang Xiaohong, Wang Xi, and the staff of the First Historical Archives. Yongzheng chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi (Hefei: Huangshan Shushe, 1998), doc. 597. 65. Ibid., doc. 630. 66. For a family history of Fan Shiyi, see Zhou Ruchang, Between Noble and Humble: Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber (New York: Peter Lang, 2009); and ECCP, 231–32. 67. GCA, no. 402018185 (n.d.). 68. Guan Xiaolian et al., Yongzheng chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi, 337–42, doc. 631 (YZ 1.9.13). 69. Kōsaka Masanori, “Shindai no ‘kuisong’: Son rei o chūshin toshite,” Tōhoku gakuin daigaku ronshū, no. 16 (1986): 81–131. 70. Shi Song, Qing shi bian nian, 4.13. See also Shizong shilu, juan 5. Also see Guoli Gugong Bowuyuan, Gongzhongdang Yongzheng chao zouzhe (Taibei: Guoli Gugong Bowugyuan, 1977–1980), vol. 26. 71. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.107. 72. Guan Xiaolian et al., Yongzheng chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi, 363–64, doc. 672 (YZ 1.9.21). 73. Ibid., doc. 768. 74. For the results of the interrogation, see ibid., doc. 767. 75. NWFZA, 0101 (n.d.). 76. On Weng Shan, a place of eunuch confinement, see chap. 3 and 8. 77. NWFZA, 0001 (YZ 5.6.14). 6 . YO N G Z H E N G’ S I N N OVAT I V E RU L E S F O R R E G U L AT I N G E U N U C H S

1. See Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate’s Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in EighteenthCentury Ch’ing China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Beatrice S. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China, 1723–1820 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 417; and Pei Huang, Autocracy at Work: A Study of the Yung-Cheng Period, 1723–1735 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), 500.

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Notes to Pages 125–132

2. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers, 62, 315n158. 3. Wang Zhiming, “Qing Yongzheng di de mianshi shu,” Shilin 4 (2005): 94–102; Lex Jing Lu, “Appearance Politics, Physiognomy, and Leadership Image: Building Political Legitimacy in Late Imperial and Modern China” (PhD diss., Syracuse University, 2016). 4. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers, 52–54 passim. 5. GCGS, pref. 2. 6. Ibid., 3.22 (YZ 3.12.25). 7. Fu had been asking another eunuch—Liu Yu, who worked in the Memorial Transmission Office—about the official who had now returned home. Was the emperor planning to return him to office? Had he memorialized the emperor, requesting reinstatement? Of this Liu Yu informed his chief eunuch, who then failed to inform the emperor. GCGS, 3.22 (YZ 3.12.25); Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian (Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe, 1993), 77, 178; Wang Xianqian, ed., Donghua lu (completed, 1892; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002), YZ 7.2185; Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige (completed, 1741; repr., Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 39.241. 8. GCGS, juan 3; QDGZXXZL-JQ, 1.2b–3a. 9. For posture, see QDGZXXZL-JQ, 1.3b–4a, reprinted in GCGS, juan 3. For unruliness, see GCGS, 3.19 (YZ 1.3.22). 10. Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 102. 11. Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian, 28. 12. GCGS, 3.24. 13. Ibid., 3.29–30 (YZ 8.3.4). 14. Da Qing guoshi renwu liezhuan (Qing History Office biographical database), 701007307. 15. Hongzhou, Ji gu zhai quan ji (Qing printing, 1746; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2010). 16. See, e.g., Hongzhou’s essay on eunuchs in the Eastern Han. Ibid., 2.34. 17. Ibid., 3.53–54. 18. Da Qing guoshi renwu liezhuan, 701007307. 19. GCGS, 3.18 (KX 61.12.8). 20. Ibid., 3.19 (YZ 1.3.22). 21. Guan Xiaolian, Qu Liusheng, Wang Xiaohong, and the staff of the First Historical Archives, Kangxi chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1996), 1.102–3, doc. 193 (YZ 1.4.24). 22. See DOT, 1228. 23. Guan Xiaolian et al., Kangxi chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi, 1.102–3, doc. 193 (YZ 1.4.24). 24. Shizong Xian huangdi shilu (hereafter Shizong shilu), in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 47.704–5 (YZ 4.8.1); Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 47.300; Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 727. 25. Shizong shilu, 47.704–5 (YZ 4.8.1); Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 47.300; Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, YZ 9.2250; Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 727.

Notes to Pages 132–138

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26. Shizong shilu, 50.751–52 (YZ 4.11.7); DQHDSL, 224.19; Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, YZ 9.2271. 27. Shizong shilu, 20.329–30 (YZ 2.5.20); Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, 2075; Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 20.117–18. 28. Bootai’s title was guanli libu shiwu. See DOT, 3315. 29. GCA, no. 402021257 (YZ 2.8.26). 30. Fuge, Ting yu cong tan (Qing manuscript; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984); Yao Yuanzhi, Zhuye ting zaji (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1982, 1997), 1.22–23. 31. DQHDSL, 1216.1096. 32. Ibid., 1212.1058. 33. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1257 (YZ 5.5.21). Notably, when reprinted in GCGS, this edict was changed to omit mention of the circumstances surrounding Yongzheng’s decision (i.e., that eunuchs released from the household of his nephew Hūngšeng had established the gambling den). GCGS, 3.24. See also Yongzheng et al., Yongzheng shangyu neige, 57.452–53. 34. Shengzu Ren huangdi shilu, in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 290.823 (KX 59.12.22). Qianlong, Qing wenxian tongkao (Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009), 246.3486. 35. Shizong shilu, 55.849; Wang Xianqian, Donghua lu, YZ 10.2325–26. 36. GCGS, 3.17 (KX 61.11.29). 37. Xiao Shi, Yong xian lu (completed, 1752; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1997), 63. 38. Yūnti was confined because of the succession scandal. 39. ECCP, 252. Yūnti had his titles reduced in 1726 because of transgressions involving a eunuch. The eunuch, named Liu Yu, absconded. Rather than reporting it properly, Yūnti sent his own agents to recapture him. The agents harassed local people and caused trouble. Shizong shilu, 41.607 (YZ 4.2.11). 40. Xiao Shi, Yong xian lu, 87. 41. GCGS, 3.31 (YZ 9.8.9). Yongzheng noted that when officials or foreign ambassadors were visiting court, eunuchs would sometimes slouch or lean to one side, and murmur among themselves. QDGZXXZL-JQ, 1.3b–4a. 42. Ibid., 1.3b–4a. 43. NWFLW, 0001 (YZ 7.5.14). This Changchun Yuan should not be confused with the Changchun Yuan (same Romanization, different characters) that is part of the Yuanming Yuan. 44. Wang Xiaohong, Yongzheng chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi (Hefei: Huangshan Shushe, 1998), doc. 193. 45. Shizong shilu, 218.426–27 (YZ 3.1.26). See also Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.87 (YZ 1.8.24). 46. The Chiming Clock Bureau (Zimingzhong) was established to maintain the palace clocks, as well as to assist in palace cleaning and watch duties. Its funds were used to reward imperial attendants. See GCGS, 21.448–49. 47. GCGS, 3.23 (YZ 4.11.12). 48. GCGS, 3.27–28 (YZ 7.2.20). 49. On their prohibition from being included in family plots, see Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian, 9. For confirmation that they could not be included in family genealogies,

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Notes to Pages 138–140

I thank the local scholar of Dacheng eunuchs Li Yuchuan. I undertook a careful study of genealogies from eunuch-producing counties, and was not able to find explicit reference to family members who had become eunuchs. The only exception was Li Lianying’s genealogy, discovered by Li Yuchuan. 50. Lu Qi and Liu Jingyi, “Qingdai taijian Enji Zhuang yingdi,” Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 3 (1979): 51. See also Neijian gongrong bei (jing 3212), in Beijing Tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushugan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–1991), 69.66; and Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 570–71. 51. Ibid., 570. See also Vincent Goossaert, The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 217. 52. Neijian gongrong bei (jing 3212), 69.66. Haiwang’s statement also appears in Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian, 61. 53. Lu Qi and Liu Jingyi, “Qingdai taijian Enji Zhuang yingdi,” 53, lists the location of other eunuch cemeteries. 54. See Liang Shaojie, “Gang Tie beike zakao: Mingdai huanguan shi de yige mi,” Dalu zazhi 91, no. 5 (November 1995): 9–25. As this article notes, by the end of the Qing there was a system in place for how eunuchs could plan for the end of life. Essentially, they paid money into a temple while alive and could live there, then get a coffin and be buried there. 55. See, e.g., the list in Lu Qi and Liu Jingyi, “Qingdai taijian Enji Zhuang yingdi,” 52–54. 56. Sun Jinchao shengfen bei (jing 3308), in Beijing Tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–1991), 72.38. 57. Wang Jinyu mubei (jing 5328), in Beijing Tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushugan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989– 1991), 69.117. 58. Though working without the benefit of Qing archives, which were not yet open, Preston Torbert came to the same conclusion about the nature of Yongzheng’s management of his eunuchs. See Preston M. Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department: A Study of its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662–1796 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1977), 50–51. 59. GCGS, juan 20. QDGZXXZL-GX, taijian 2a–2b. 60. GCGS, juan 21. QDGZXXZL-GX, taijian 3a, notes that the supplements became annual add-ons. 61. QDGZXXZL-GX, taijian 7b–12b. 62. Jonathan D. Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 13. On the difficulty of ascertaining eunuch salaries before the Qianlong period, see Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian, 22, 54. 63. DQHDSL, 1216.1092; QSG, 3442. 64. Yu Huaqing, Zhongguo huanguan zhidu shi (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2006), 466. 65. QDGZXXZL-GX, taijian 1a–1b. 66. Ibid., taijian 1b. 67. In English notation of the Chinese ranking system, these are referred to as “a” and “b,” respectively. 68. See DOT, 3486.

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69. DQHDSL, 1216.1090. See Albert Mann, “The Influence of Eunuchs in the Politics and Economy of the Ch’ing Court 1861–1907” (MA thesis, University of Washington), 48. 70. QDGZXXZL-GX, taijian 2a (YZ 8.6.25); DQHDSL, 1216.1090. 71. These manufactories were collectively termed the San Zuo. 72. GCGS, 3.30–31. 73. LFZZ, 0047 (YZ 12.2.30). 74. In 1724, e.g., he hand-picked the eunuchs who would serve as guards over his brother Yūnceng. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce, 1.393. 7 . Q IA N L O N G : SH I F T I N G T H E A R C O F H I ST O RY

1. GCGS, 4.36 (YZ 13.10.11); Gaozong Chun huangdi shilu (hereafter Gaozong shilu), in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 4.224 (YZ 13.10.11). 2. Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 36. 3. See Michael G. Chang, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 7, 145, 220. 4. See Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), 45; and Richard Wilhelm, trans., The I Ching or Book of Changes, Bollingen Series 19, 3rd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 670 (commentary). 5. Some of these anxieties were reflected in his mourning for his first wife, the Xiaoxian empress. See Norman Kutcher, “The Death of the Xiaoxian Empress: Bureaucratic Betrayals and the Crises of Eighteenth-Century Chinese Rule,” Journal of Asian Studies, 56, no. 3 (August 1997): 708–25. 6. See Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 276–90. As Michael G. Chang has written regarding Qianlong: “To his mind, the martial vigor and discipline exemplified by the ruling house and its bannermen were the very foundations of a flourishing age, a civilized polity, and an expansive empire.” Chang, Court on Horseback, 206. 7. Qianlong and Liu Tongxun, Ping jian chan yao (Qing printing, 1771; repr., Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1977), 12.13a–b. 8. Ibid., 3.1a–b. 9. Ibid., 5.18b–19a One can’t help but wonder whether this made Qianlong think of his grandfather’s relationship with Wei Zhu. 10. Ibid., 5.25b–26a. 11. Ibid., 7.26b–27a. Qianlong blamed officials in the Song for their lack of courage, which led to eunuchs stepping into the power vacuum. When Shenzong wanted to pacify the Xi Xia, no officials would formulate a plan, so Shenzong turned to his eunuchs, and the affairs of state declined. Ibid., 8.7a–b. 12. Ibid., 11.19a–b. 13. Ibid., 11.4a–b. The term meant “ugly remains of castration.” 14. Ibid., 12.14b–15a. 15. GCGS, pref.

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Notes to Pages 147–152

16. Qianlong may have been motivated by his dissatisfaction with the quality of offerings that were made to his deceased father and grandfather in that palace. The supervisory eunuchs stationed there, he had complained in 1741, were too undignified to prepare the sacrifices properly. These men were suited to guarding the palace, but when it came to offerings they were inadequate. He ordered that offerings be prepared only by chief eunuchs and eunuchs who had served in the living quarters. GCGS, 4.42 (QL 6.11.8). Wei Zhu, who had served his father and grandfather in life, would have known how best to serve them in death. 17. See Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 287. 18. GCGS, 4.39–40 (QL 1.12.4). 19. Ibid., 4.39. 20. Ibid., 4.39–40 (QL 1.12.4). 21. Ibid., 4.35 (YZ 13.10.11). The edict is partially translated in Rawski, Last Emperors, 194. 22. GCGS, 42 (QL 6.7.14). 23. Gu Yanwu, Huang Rucheng, and Huang Kan, Ri zhi lu ji shi (Taibei: Shijie Shuju, 1968), 13.287. 24. NWFLW, “shengchu jianli,” 2877. 25. See Edward J. M. Rhoads, Manchus & Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861–1928 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 57–58. 26. GCGS, 1.43 (QL 6.12.1); Gaozong shilu, 156.1223 (QL 6.12.1). 27. For its reoccurrence in the Jiaqing period, see DQHDSL, 1217.1099 (JQ 18). 28. Su Peisheng muzhi (jing 4092), in Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–1991), 70.7. 29. Parts of this edict are translated in Rawski, Last Emperors, 194. I have used some of Rawski’s phrasing, incorporating some of my own, and have included portions that were omitted. For the original text, see Gaozong shilu, 4.222–25 (YZ 13.10.11), reprinted in GCGS, 4.35 (YZ 13.10.11). 30. Gaozong shilu, 224–1 (YZ 13.10.11). 31. See also Wu Zhengge, “Ming Qing taijian shi shi,” Zhongguo pengren, no. 9 (2003): 36–37 (which incorrectly places the rice allotment at one and a half jin rather than hu, and also notes that eunuchs did not eat dog or beef). Rawski notes: “Although the palace purchased some of its supplies in Peking, many of its grain, meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit came from its own estates. While the palace staff ate yellow, white, and purple ‘old rice’ from the official granaries, the imperial table was supplied with first-grade rice from its own estates in the Yuquan mountains, Fengzeyuan, and Tangquan and some rice from Korea.” Rawski, Last Emperors, 47. 32. In Lao taijian de huiyi, Xin Xiuming recalled that when he sold each season’s allotment of rice it netted him approximately two taels, so that he got only eight taels a year from selling rice. The buyers were dealers in old rice who hailed from Shandong Province. Xin Xiuming, Lao taijian de huiyi (Beijing: Beijing Yanshan Chubanshe, 1987), 79–80. In 1737 the granary was moved to just outside the Donghua Gate.

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33. See Preston M. Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department: A Study of its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662–1796 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1977), 44 (and n. 58). Toward the end of his reign, Qianlong would remark that ordinary eunuchs still received a salary of only two taels per month, and five taels for joining the service. NWFLW, 2150 (QL 50.6.30). 34. See Torbert, Ch’ing Imperial Household Department, 44; Melissa S. Dale, “With the Cut of a Knife: A Social History of Eunuchs during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) and Republican Periods (1912–1949)” (PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2000), 92; and Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian (Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe, 1993), 22–23. 35. QDGZXXZL-JQ, 4.7b–61a. For an instance in which the chart was consulted, see NWFZA, 0082 (QL 11.12.19). In a nod to his father’s system of incentivizing eunuchs, he allocated the end-of-year bonuses collectively, presumably so that the most deserving eunuchs would receive higher bonuses. QDGZXXZL-JQ, 4.13a. In 1742 he was feeling particularly magnanimous toward the eunuchs who had served him in very snowy weather, and gave each a bonus of a month’s salary—a paltry amount to him. The publication of this in A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces was designed to show his ongoing strictness toward his eunuchs, since the amount was relatively meager. GCGS, 4.44 (QL 7.2.4). 36. GCGS, 4.54 (QL 12.1.24). 37. Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu (Qing printing 1695, 1834; repr., Taibei: Wenshizhe Chubanshe, 1979), 348. 38. Qianlong and Liu Tongxun, Ping jian chan yao, 5.60. 39. Ibid., 10.109. 40. GCGS, 4.36 (YZ 3.10.11); Gaozong shilu, 4.224 (YZ 3.10.11). He raises the issue of ranks and his strictness about them in the edict that became the preface to A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces; see GCGS, pref. 2. 41. QDGZXXZL-GX, taijian 4.3a (QL 7.10.5). See also GCGS, 440. 42. Tang Yinian makes this point. Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian, 48. 43. I have encountered almost no Qianlong-era references to eunuch ranks, except in the case of the censuses of eunuchs in the princely households. 44. This is evident from the chart that appears in QDGZXXZL-GX, juan 4, and from the stele at Enji Zhuang. 45. As noted in chap. 2, the Shunzhi emperor had created his own such organization, the Sili Yuan, or Office of the Court of Personnel, much to the consternation of his officials and, later, his family. In his forged will, he would have to atone for that action. 46. Qianlong and Liu Tongxun, Ping jian chan yao, 11.120. 47. See John Hay, “The Human Body as a Microcosmic Source of Macrocosmic Values in Calligraphy,” in Theories of the Arts in China, ed. Susan Bush and Christian Murck (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 92–95. See also the ideas of Yu Shinan (558–638), as quoted in Ronald C. Egan, “Ou-yang Hsiu and Su Shih on Calligraphy,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 49 no. 2 (December 1989): 386. Further see Wu Dingbo and Patrick D. Murphy, Handbook of Chinese Popular Culture (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), 321–22; and Li Wendan, Chinese Writing and Calligraphy (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009), chap. 13. 48. In 2012, I visited the regular weekend antiques fair held at Baoguo Si. There I met a dealer in antique writings, and asked him whether he had any documents written by

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Notes to Pages 154–157

eunuchs. “Not currently,” he answered. “But I recognize their writing immediately when I see it. Eunuchs have no yang energy [meiyou yangqi], and it’s obvious from their writing.” 49. Qianlong and Liu Tongxun, Ping jian chan yao, 11.2b–3a. 50. DQHDSL, 1201.944. 51. LFZZ, 2174 (JQ 8). 52. For a description of the Writing Characters Office from a much later period, see Zhenjun, Tian zhi ou wen (Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1967), 1.7 et seq. According to Tang Yinian, eunuch literacy in the Qing was accomplished through two subordinate offices in the Jingshi Fang: the “Han Library” and the “Manchu Library,” both of which were subordinate to the supervisory eunuchs in that agency. Neither library was permitted to have supervisory or chief eunuchs in it, as a way to maintain their low status. I have not found confirmation of this information. Tang Yinian, Qing gong taijian, 23. 53. Pamela Kyle Crossley and Evelyn S. Rawski, “A Profile of the Manchu Language in Ch’ing History,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 53, no. 1 (June 1993): 70–71. 54. Overall eunuch literacy in the Qing is hard to measure. During the Republican period, an investigation of eunuchs living in temples in the Beijing area found that of fortyfive eunuchs interviewed, fourteen had some degree of literacy and thirty-one were illiterate. Beijing Municipal Archives, 196.1.30. On Manchu as a security language, see Crossley and Rawski, “Profile of the Manchu Language.” 55. Li Yuchuan, Li Lianying gongting shenghuo xiezhen (Beijing: Changcheng Chubanshe, 1995), 7–8. An Dehai, too, was highly educated and literate. He could lecture on The Mencius, The Book of Songs, and The Analects, among other texts. His lectures apparently pleased Cixi immensely. In fact, he emphasized learning so much in his life that he once had the arrogance to refer to himself as “the emperor’s reading companion.” Chai E., Fan tian lu conglu (MS, 1926; repr., Taibei: Yu Dian Wenhua Shiye Youxian Gongsi, 1976), 17.13b–14a. 56. E.g., in 1748 Zhang Guotai, who had worked in the Ying Fang (Falcon House), was sent for retraining to the Dasao Chu. GCGS, 4.55 (QL 13.12.15). See also GCGS, 4.47 (QL 9.2.4). 57. NWFLW, Jingshi Fang, 3649 (JQ 7.12.12). The document discusses changing the date of Rid the Palace of Dust Day so that it would not conflict with the temple festival in Huguo Si. This event mirrored the popular festival by a similar name, during which people in houses throughout China, regardless of size, swept to prepare for the New Year celebrations. The palace holiday was called jing chen ri, and the popular festival sao chen ri. 58. Gaozong shilu, 1403.854 (QL 57.R4.28). 59. Ibid., 1280.145 (QL 52.5.2). 60. Albert Mann, “The Influence of Eunuchs in the Politics and Economy of the Ch’ing Court, 1861–1907” (MA thesis, University of Washington, 1957), 56. 61. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo, Ming shilu (Taibei: Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan Lishi Yuyan Yanjiusuo, 1966), 31.552 (HW 1.4.16). 62. Charles O. Hucker, The Censorial System of Ming China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966), 200. Qianlong considered Yang one of only three truly upright Ming officials. 63. Shengzu Ren huangdi shilu, in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986; hereafter Shengzu shilu), 154.701–1 (KX 31.1).

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64. Late in the Qing the censor Zhu Yixin criticized the dispatching of eunuch Li Lianying on what the censor claimed essentially constituted a military mission, but this was stretching the facts. QSG, 118.3444. 65. Thus, two famous Kangxi-era eunuchs had their names associated with temples: Wei Zhu with Dinghui Si, and Liang Jiugong with Jing’yin Si. See Jing’yin si bei (jing 606), in Beijing tushugan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, 66.67–68. 66. Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 348. Even in the case of Li Lianying, Naquin notes, “there were no obvious acts of temple patronage when he acted alone or on [Cixi’s] behalf.” Ibid. 67. For an additional Shunzhi example, see Shizhu Zhang huangdi shilu, in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986; hereafter Shizu shilu), 71.549–50 (SZ 9.11.11); for a Kangxi example, see GCA, 401001591 (n.d.); for a Yongzheng example, see GCGS, 18. 68. Liu’s story appears in the cases because he accidentally drowned in the palace moat. NWFZA, 0283 (QL 35.12.5). 69. NWFZA, 0538 (QL 46.3.22). For another example, see NWFZA, 0096 (QL 19.9.5) (Eunuch brings home his ironing for his mother to do). 70. NWFLW, 2152 (QL 51.5.13). 71. DQHDSL, 1202.964. 72. GCGS, 4.42 (QL 4.12.1). The edict failed to tell the whole story. In that very year, Hongxi was found to be at the center of a failed coup d’état, which would have put him on the throne rather than his cousin Qianlong. The emperor’s crackdown on Li Pan was thus not a simple case of a eunuch gossiping about court matters. Instead, it was a case related to the old problem of eunuch involvement in succession. The case has not received sufficient attention. For a primer, see Zhou Ruchang, Between Noble and Humble: Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber, ed. Ronald R. Gray and Mark S. Ferrara (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), 143–44. 73. QDGZXXZL-JQ, 1.14b (QL 16.5.21). 74. A case in 1819 noted the existence of a group of eunuchs living outside the Yuanming Yuan palace in northeastern Beijing who were studying an unspecified craft. NWFZA, 0605 (JQ 2 4.11.7). 75. Frances Wood, “Imperial Architecture of the Qing,” in China: The Three Emperors, 1662–1795, ed. Evelyn S. Rawski and Jessica Rawson (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2005), 61. 76. NWFZA, 0415 (QL 53.6.7). 77. DQHDSL, 12.1052 (QL 15). In a subsequent discussion of the case, Qianlong reduced punishments for the supervisory and chief eunuchs, but said the case should serve as precedent to remind people that outsiders should not be allowed to stay inside the palace walls. Ibid., 12.1053. 78. Matteo Ripa and Fortunato Prandi, Memoirs of Father Ripa, during Thirteen Years’ Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China; with an Account of the Foundation of the College for the Education of Young Chinese at Naples (New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846), 62.; Matteo Ripa, Storia della fondazione della Congregazione e del Collegio de’ Cinesi, sotto il titolo della Sagra Famiglia di G.C. (Naples: Tipografia Manfredi, 1832), 1:400. 79. NWFLW, 0021 (QL 45.2.21). 80. NWFZA, 0099 (QL 20.1.11).

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81. Wang Fuzhi, “Shang shu yin yi,” in Chuanshan Yi Shu (Qing printing, 1842, 1865; repr., Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1999), 498. 82. E.g., Li Zongwan has noted that Buddhism appealed to eunuchs in large measure because they were outcasts to their society, especially when, old and worn out, they returned to their villages to discover that they were spurned by family and would be refused burial in family plots. Li Zongwan, Jingcheng guji kao (Beijing: Beijing Guji Chubanshe, 1981), 39. 83. Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu, 48. For more details on this event, see David M. Robinson, “Politics, Force and Ethnicity in Ming China: Mongols and the Abortive Coup of 1461,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 59, no. 1 (June 1999): 79–123. 84. Gu Yanwu, Ri zhi lu, 48. For more on Wang Hui, see Frederick Mote, “The Ch’enghua and Hung-chih Reigns,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 1, ed. Frederick W. Mote and Dennis Twitchett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 369–70. Mote also notes the importance of Gu Yanwu’s two essays on eunuchs. 85. Lang Ying, Qi xiu lei gao (Qing printing, 1775; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959?, 1981), 415–16. 86. Hans Bielenstein, “Wang Mang, the Restoration of the Han Dynasty, and Later Han,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1., The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 BC–AD 220, ed. Dennis Twitchett and Michael Loewe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 287–88. 87. Du Wenyu, “Tangdai huanguan shijia kaoshu,” Shanxi Shifan Daxue xuebao 27, no. 2 (June 1998): 78–85. 88. Shen Defu, Wanli ye huo bian (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959), 158–59. 89. See “Neijian qu qi,” in Zhao Yi, Gai yu cong kao (Qing printing, 1790; repr., Taibei: Xinwenfeng Chuban Gongsi, 1975). 90. See the example in GSA, no. 087441 (SZ 12.6.18). 91. J. J. Matignon, Les eunuques du Palais Impérial à Pékin, vol. 5 of La Chine hermétique: Superstitions, crime et misère (Souvenirs de biologie sociale), 5th rev. ed. (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1936), 203–4. 92. NWFZA, 0113 (QL 16.R5.11). In an edict dated February 25, 1705, the Kangxi emperor had prohibited eunuchs from having fictive uncle–niece relationships with palace eunuchs. GCGS, 2.12. Among themselves, eunuchs often created bonds of kinship, which was another area in which the imperial household looked the other way. 93. Quoted in GJTSJC, 255.21. 94. Wang Sanpin, Gujin shiwu kao (Ming printing, 1563; repr., Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1973). On Hongwu, see Wang Shizhen, Zhong guan kao (repr., Chengdu: Bashu Shushe, 2000), 2.131. See also Lei Li (1505–1581), Huang Ming da zheng ji (repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1995), juan 2. 95. Shengzu shilu, 240.391 (KX 48.11). 96. Xiao Shi, Yong xian lu (completed, 1752; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959), 1.5. 97. How accurate was Kangxi’s accounting of the number of his eunuchs? The answer is unclear, and his numbers seem like rough approximations. There is certainly no record of his ever calling for a census or accounting of the total number of his eunuchs, nor have any personnel records come to light, though they might well have existed. Father Ripa, who was well connected at court and knew many of the eunuchs, put their number much higher—at

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six thousand. He still saw this as a marked contrast to the Ming, when there were ten thousand eunuchs in the palace. Ripa and Prandi, Memoirs of Father Ripa, 52; Ripa, Storia della fondazione, 1:83. Ripa’s number seems high, just as Kangxi’s numbers seem low—designed as expressions of frugality rather than accurate accountings. 98. NWFZA, 0021 (QL 4.3.26). 99. The edict is referenced in NWFZA, 0486 (JQ 5.12.25). See also Zhongguo huanguan zhidu shi, 465, citing gongzhong zajian. 100. GCGS, 4.51 (QL 11.3.5). The census was ordered in an edict of December 12, 1745. NWFZA, 0089 (QL 12.12.15). 101. NWFZA, 0082 (QL 11.12.19). 102. His order read: “Henceforth, the quota number of eunuchs in the Qianqing Gong and such places and the number of how many more eunuchs were chosen by exceeding the quota should be checked and reported to the chief ministers of the Imperial Household Department, who will then report it to me at the end of each year.” NWFZA, 0089 (QL 12.12.15). 103. This is the consensus view among research scholars in the First Historical Archives. I thank Wang Jinlong for collecting views on the subject. 104. On Jingyi Yuan, see Naquin, Temples and City Life, 313. 105. NWFZA, 0089 (QL 12.12.15). 106. On the archer eunuchs, see GCGS, 21.474. Outside the wall, three thousand Manchu bannermen provided defense. Young-tsu Wong, A Paradise Lost: The Imperial Garden Yuanming Yuan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), 77. 107. Young-tsu Wong, A Paradise Lost, 104. On the initial assignment of seventy eunuchs, see NWFZA, 0021 (QL 4.3.26). Considering the particular requirements of the Yuanming Yuan and the many different functions carried out there, I believe the number may have been considerably higher. 108. He boasted of the small number of women in his life: “When you add up my empress, concubines, and those women who serve me, the number is not greater than fifteen or sixteen.” He drew a stark contrast with the Han and Tang. Gaozong shilu, 576.332 (QL 23.12.1). 109. GCGS, 4.58 (QL 19.1.30). 110. Yao Yuanzhi, Zhu ye ting zaji (MS, 1893; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1982, 1997), 2.43–44. 111. GCGS, 4.58. 112. Zhaolian, Xiaoting Zalu, Xiaoting xulu (repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1966), 868. This source notes that undesirable eunuchs who were either old or simple were put in charge of incense at the Imperial Ancestral Temple. It notes that Qianlong was so angered at the disrespect being shown to ancestral worship that he ordered every princely household to provide two eunuchs to serve there. 113. NWFLW, 2157 (QL 54.3.19). 114. NWFLW, 2159 (QL 55.12). The practice of waiting until eleven sui was followed in other cases as well. See, e.g., NWFLW, 2168 (QL 60.8). 115. NWFZA, 0449 (QL 58.11.16). Posted to the Qing border, the Solons, as Mark Elliott notes, “retained more of their ‘raw’ martial spirit and were widely regarded as fearsome warriors.” Elliott, Manchu Way, 85.

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Notes to Pages 170–177

116. This policy, Qianlong would claim, was set forth in response to an edict from the Board of Punishments suggesting that distinctions should be made between those who castrated themselves out of poverty and those who did so to avoid punishment. Gaozong shilu, 1234.582 (QL 50.7.12). For criticism of the policy, see Xue Yunsheng, Du li cun yi chong kan ben (Qing printing, 1905; repr., Taipei: Chengwen Chubanshe, 1970), 44.208. 117. Gaozong shilu, 1232.533 (QL 50.6.4). The policy can be dated to 1779, when seven such men were allowed to enter service. See ibid., 1717.472 (QL 44.2.26). For more details on Wang Cheng’s case, see NWFLW, 2150 (QL50.6.30). He was actually only thirteen sui. 118. NWFLW, 2159 (QL 55.9.16). 119. Instances of self-castration to avoid punishment were prominent in the Ming, and happened occasionally in the Qing. See GCA, 063615, in which a brigand castrated himself in attempt to escape justice. 120. NWFLW, 2150, app. (QL 56.6.30). 121. NWFLW, 2161 (QL 57.1.27). 122. NWFLW, 2160 (QL 56.5.18). 8 . Q IA N L O N G’ S F L AW E D SYS T E M O F OV E R SIG H T

1. NWFZA, 0208 (QL 48.8.19). 2. NWFZA, 0449 (QL 58.4.27). 3. Melissa Dale has made the intriguing suggestion that eunuchs who entered palace service through the same go-betweens may have been given the same second characters in their surnames. Melissa S. Dale, “With the Cut of a Knife: A Social History of Eunuchs during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) and Republican Periods (1912–1949)” (PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2000), 74. 4. NWFZA, 0077 (QL 11.5.28). This case, involving the use of eunuch nicknames, is that of eunuchs Dong Junfu and Lu Chengwen, described in the section of this chapter titled “The Eunuch Hierarchy,” 185–86. 5. The courtesy name (zi) was given at maturity, and the pen name, or pseudonym (hao), was self-chosen. 6. The Kangxi period was an exception, which demonstrates the particular status of eunuchs during that reign. 7. Xiaohengxiangshizhuren, Qingchao yeshi da guan (Shanghai: Wenyi Chubanshe, 1990), shang, 46–47. It is something of a corollary that in the Ming dynasty no eunuchs were permitted to have the surname Zhu, which was the imperial family name. Instead they were required to change it to a homophone. Shi Xuan et al., Jiu jing yi shi (Ming); Jiu jing suo ji (Qing); Yanjing zaji (Qing) (Republican printing, 1938, c. 1932, 1925; repr., Beijing: Beijing Guji Chubanshe, 1986), 12. 8. Li Yuchuan, Li Lianying gongting shenghuo xiezhen (Beijing: Changcheng Chubanshe, 1995), 244. 9. E.g., Zhang Chengquan was the household manager for the eunuch Wei Zhu, a main character in previous chapters. Zhang’s brother was a eunuch who had changed his surname to Wang, and taken the name Wang Deyong. Guan Xiaolian, Qu Liusheng, Wang Xiaohong, and the staff of the First Historical Archives, Yongzheng chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1996), doc. 672, shang,

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363–64. In another example, eunuch Zhang Yu had changed his surname from Li because his father, a supervisory eunuch named Li Chaowang, did not want his son to follow in his footsteps and enter palace service. NWFZA, 0182 (QL 26.2.27). In a Daoguang-era case, a eunuch noted that he essentially used two different surnames. One was the “name under which he collected his salary,” and the other was his “official name” (guan ming). NWFLW, 2237 (DG 3.3.21). 10. In one case, a eunuch named Zhang Feng (“Phoenix” Zhang) enraged Qianlong by stealing and melting a gold-plated investiture edict. The name Zhang Feng was such a common eunuch name, however, that it is nearly impossible to discern if any of the Zhang Fengs who appear in the Office of Palace Justice files in the period leading up to this most brazen of crimes are the same man. See NWFZA, 0086 (QL 17.2.18); and NWFZA, 0086 (QL 17.3.22). 11. See, e.g., discrepancies between the four case reports detailing the four escapes of eunuch Yan Yuzhu: NWFZA, 0447 (QL 58.7.10); NWFZA, 0470 (JQ 3.4.3); NWFZA, 0488 (JQ 6.3.22); and NWFZA, 0524 (JQ 11.11.7). See also the discrepancies regarding hometown and age of castration in the confessions of the recidivist eunuch Su Jincheng: NWFZA, 0435 (QL 56.7.19); NWFZA, 0445 (QL 58.2.7); NWFZA, 0524 (JQ 11.9.13). 12. For an excellent discussion, see Dale, “With the Cut of a Knife,” 131–32. 13. NWFLW, 2155 (QL 52.11). 14. NWFLW, 2237 (DG 3.7.5). Local archival documents from the Heilongjiang Provincial Archives contain more detailed descriptions of eunuchs who ran from their enslavement, and describe clothing. 15. See NWFLW, 2296 (DG 28.7.8); and NWFLW, 2296 (DG 27.12). Sons of rebels and criminals selected for castration did often have their fingerprints analyzed and reported. See, e.g., NWFLW, 2159 (QL 55.8.7); and NWFLW, 2160 (QL 56.3.7). 16. NWFZA, 0021 (QL 4.4.1). When non-eunuchs stole from the palace, their faces were tattooed. In 1795, e.g., after Wang Sier stole a heda (a piece of white silk, used as a greeting by Tibetans and Mongols), he had his face tattooed. NWFLW, 2168 (QL 60.12.7). 17. For a more complete discussion of the Inner Police Bureau, see below. 18. DQHDSL, 1159.551. 19. NWFZA, 0489 (JQ 6.6.14). 20. See DQHDSL, 1170.652; and DOT, 4995. 21. DQHDSL, 1170.652. 22. Qingchao tongzhi (completed, 1787; repr., Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1935), 66.7150; Qingchao wenxian tong kao (completed, 1787; repr., Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1936), 5607–2. The presence of clerks competent in Manchu is first mentioned in 1735. See DQHDSL, 1170.653. 23. Qingchao tong dian (repr., Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1935), 619.2528.2; Qingchao wenxian tong kao, 181.6418. 24. On sula, see the introduction. 25. Zhaolian, Xiaoting Zalu (completed, c. Daoguang period; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980), 229. 26. Note that the number of lashes was not directly comparable to the number of blows of the heavy and light bamboo that were meted out as part of the general Qing legal system. See NWFZA, 0188 (QL 19.9.5).

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Notes to Pages 180–187

27. I thank Li Baowen for this information. The process is further described in Pan Junying, “Qingdai Neiwufu zouan ji qi neirong jieshao,” Lishi dang’an, no. 2 (2005): 116–19. The number of chief ministers varied over time. There could be as few as one (as at points in the Kangxi period) or as many as eight (in the Yongzheng period). They frequently possessed concurrent appointments elsewhere in the bureaucracy. 28. NWFZA, 0188 (QL 19.9.5). Punishments were also meted out to their supervisory eunuch. 29. Compare NWFLW, 2167 (QL 60.4.23), with NWFLW, 2168 (QL 60.8.29). 30. For an excellent discussion of an analogous process in the world of the xingke tiben, see Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 26–28. 31. Pan Junying, “Qingdai Neiwufu zouan,” 117. 32. NWFZA, 0262 (QL 47.11.29). The eunuch Wu Zongxian also used the clothing excuse. NWFZA, 0343 (QL 44.1.22). See also NWFZA, 0415 (QL 53.7.8), in which a eunuch used the excuse of shopping for clothes to conceal what would, in most cases, also be considered a legitimate excuse: worry over a mother’s illness. Another eunuch, who worked on an island in the Yuanming Yuan, did exactly the same thing. NWFZA, 0284 (QL 51.7.25). 33. NWFZA, 2160 (QL 56.6.10). 34. See NWFZA, 0173 (QL 33.9.5). 35. NWFLW, 2139 (QL 46.R5.17). See also cases in Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 36. NWFZA, 0240 (QL 43.12.22). 37. NWFZA, 0157 (QL 22.9.10). 38. NWFZA, 0179 (QL 15.4.27). 39. NWFZA, 0388 (QL 49.10.29). On palace maids generally, see Rawski, Last Emperors, 169–71. 40. NWFZA, 0077 (QL 11.5.28). 41. NWFZA, 0249 (QL 45.9.17). For more details on the Yong’an Si, see NWFZA, 0329 (QL 41.11.18). See also the case of a painting-mounting eunuch who ran because his supervisory eunuch was too tough on him. NWFZA, 0072 (QL 10.6.18). 42. NWFZA, 0245 (QL 32.R7.28). 43. GCGS, 4.54 (QL 12.1.24). 44. NWFZA, 0077 (QL 15.4.79). 45. ZPZZ, 04–01–14–0011–026 (QL 10.3.14). In one instance, the memorializing official criticized the supervisory eunuch for granting a lengthy leave without first reporting it to the chief eunuch. 46. In 1792, e.g., the fifty-seven-year-old eunuch Zhao Xiang confessed that he had learned from a fellow villager that his mother was gravely ill. He confessed, “I was so worried when I heard this, but dared not ask for leave.” NWFZA, 0316 (QL 57.9.16). 47. See, e.g., NWFZA, 0189 (QL 35.5.23), in which a eunuch alludes to the fact that he was unable to obtain leave because he had no money to pay his supervisory eunuch. 48. See, e.g., NWFZA, 0225 (QL 39.2.2). 49. NWFZA, 0190 (QL 35.5.17). 50. NWFZA, 0107 (QL 21.3.12).

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51. NWFZA, 0225 (QL 39.2.2). This case also demonstrates that supervisory eunuchs might work together to solve cases and discipline offending eunuchs, even when those eunuchs worked in different palaces. 52. See NWFZA, 0166 (QL 32.8), which details the facts of the case, and NWFZA, 0166 (QL 32.8.21), which details the sentence imposed on the supervisory eunuch. 53. The case also demonstrates what was likely a common practice. If a supervisor feared that a eunuch in his employ was going to die, he sent him home to recuperate, so the death would not be on his hands. 54. NWFZA, 0001–003 (YZ 5.6.4). 55. NWFZA, 0053 (QL 7.12.12). 56. Fuge, Ting yu cong tan (Qing MS; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 5.124. 57. DQHDSL, 12.1058; Qingchao wenxian tong kao, 83.5608–2. 58. The translation of “Bujuntong” is Alison Dray-Novey’s. See Dray-Novey, “Spatial Order and Police in Imperial Beijing,” Journal of Asian Studies 52, no. 4 (November 1993): 892n4. 59. Fuge, Ting yu cong tan, 5.124. I have also seen reference to a “Booi Fanyi,” which presumably dealt with crimes by bondservants. NWFLW, 2122 (QL 29.12). 60. As was the case when the eunuch Fan Zhong fought with the unemployed bannerman Liushiwu. NWFZA, 0159 (QL 31.8.1). 61. Dray-Novey, “Spatial Order and Police,” 904. See also David Strand, Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 66 (and nn. 6 and 7). This intentional redundancy was a product of both Beijing’s importance as a capital and its dual Han and Manchu character. 62. NWFZA, 0075 (QL 14.9.20). See also NWFZA, 0021 (QL 4.4.10). 63. Bannermen, he said, should be interrogated at the office of the governor of their banner, and ordinary Han people should be interrogated at the office of their circuit intendant, so they can check up on each other. QSG, 304.10499–10500. 64. Gaozong Chun huangdi shilu, in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986), 20.497–498 (QL 1.6.12). See also Xu Ke, Qing bai lei chao (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 5261. 65. Xue Yunsheng, Du li cun yi chongkan ben (Qing printing, 1905; repr., Taibei: Chengwen Chubanshe, 1970), vol. 39, no. 336–18, 1005. 66. Ibid., vol. 45, no. 387–02, 1120. 67. Ibid., vol. 45, no. 387–07, 1122. 68. LFZZ, 1224 (n.d.). 69. LFZZ, 1200 (QL 7.4.27). On Šuhede, see ECCP, 659–61. 70. LFZZ, 1354 (QL 39.11.19). 71. Early Qianlong records indicate that a five taels’ bounty was paid for each runaway eunuch. In a somewhat typical example, NWFZA, 0008 (QL 1.9.26), indicates that when the eunuch Bei Jinzhong was captured, the Fanyi headman and policeman received five taels. The bounty had been doubled by at least the twenty-sixth year of Qianlong’s reign. NWFZA, 0199, reports that from June 30, 1761, to June 20, 1762, the Fanyi captured eleven runaway eunuchs and were paid ten taels per capita. 72. NWFZA, 0036 (QL 5.2.21). 73. G. Carter Stent, “Chinese Eunuchs,” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Shanghai), n.s. 11 (1877).

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Notes to Pages 192–196

74. NWFZA, 0169 (QL 33.1.14). In taking 1760 as a benchmark, this memorial refers to that year as the one in which the “Fanyi was reestablished,” suggesting that it may have disintegrated as an organized body in the early decades of the Qianlong reign, but then been formally reestablished. For another memorial referencing 1760 as a benchmark date, see NWFZA, 0169 (QL 33.1.14). See also Dale, “With the Cut of a Knife,” 136–39 (“Evading Capture”). 75. As members of the Fanyi police themselves noted: “More often than not, runaway eunuchs run to their homes.” NWFZA, 0264 (QL 34.4.10). 76. Not all memorials are detailed regarding Fanyi captures, but a sufficient number are. On November 6, 1772, the chief eunuchs reported the escape of the eunuch Zhang Runan. The police interviewed the eunuch’s brother and learned that the eunuch had escaped to his native Wen’an County. The Fanyi police were then issued warrants and were sent there with the local clerk; together they captured the runaway. NWFZA, 0208 (QL 37.11.2). 77. NWFZA, 0075 (QL 14.9.20). 78. See, e.g., NWFZA, 0213 (QL 41). 79. DQHDSL, 1172, 12.665 (QL 15). Hu Zhongliang, “Tantan ‘Weng Shan zha cao,’ ” Gugong Bowuyuan yuankan 3 (1986): 92. 80. DQHDSL, 164.72. 81. NWFZA, 0082 (QL 16.R5.16). In this case, the eunuch Lü He was reported to have spent a half-day cutting grass “in a room without sunshine.” 82. Hu Zhongliang, “Tantan ‘Weng Shan zha cao,’ ” 92. 83. Annual censuses of eunuchs permanently cutting grass were submitted in the twelfth month of each year. There were generally two to ten eunuchs serving life sentences at Weng Shan (or later, Wudian) in any given year. In 1748, there were fourteen, but nine of them were sent from the princes’ households, for unspecified and somewhat mysterious crimes. Of the remaining five, four were there for attempted suicide, and one was there for theft of items from the Jingyi Yuan. NWFZA, 0112 (QL 22.12.17). 84. NWFZA, 0082 (QL 16R5.16). 85. NWFZA, 0157 (QL 22.8.25). 86. NWFLW, 2139 (QL 4 6.8.27). 87. NWFZA, 0721 (DG 21.10.26). 88. For case reports mentioning imperial amnesties, see NWFZA, 0012 (QL 2.9.26); and NWFLW, 2118 (QL 25.5). 89. Cases such NWFZA, 0412 (QL 53.2.16), show the degree of severity represented by each place of exile. In this case, the chief minister of the Imperial Household Department opined that banishment for one eunuch to Heilongjiang would be insufficient to cover his guilt; therefore he was to be banished to Xinjiang. In this case, the least guilty eunuch was sent to Dasheng Wula. 90. NWFZA, 0264 (QL 34.4.10). 91. The figure of Tang Guotai is mysterious as well, and he is not mentioned in the disposition section of the case report. Was he enslaved, technically or otherwise, there? Or was he a formerly enslaved eunuch who had purchased his freedom? 92. NWFLW, 2135 (QL 43.R6). 93. NWFLW, 2118 (QL 24.2). 94. In 1773, just one eunuch escaped from exile. NWFZA, 0211 (QL 38.3.24). In 1778, just one ran. NWFLW, 2135 (QL 43.R6).

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95. NWFLW, 2162 (QL 57.12.20). 96. Robert H. G. Lee, The Manchurian Frontier in Ch’ing History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 84, citing Jilin tongzhi 2.6b-8a (JQ 15.10.14). 97. DQHDSL, 1212.1053 (QL 17). 98. Heilongjiang Provincial Archives, 54.2.399 (GX 28.9.17). For a similar example, see ibid., 54.1.23–2 (GX 27.11.15). 9 . T H E WO R L D C R E AT E D B Y Q IA N L O N G A N D H I S E U N U C H S

1. Gao was executed on August 30, 1774. Gaozong Chun huangdi shilu (hereafter Gaozong shilu), in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986, 963.1073 (QL 39.7.28). 2. QSG, 319.10750 (biography of Yu Minzhong); Da Qing guoshi renwu liezhuan, 5638 (Qing history office biographical database). 3. QSG, 118.3443. 4. For analyses of the case, see Preston M. Torbert, The Ch’ing Imperial Household Department: A Study of Its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662–1796 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1977), 131–36; and Wang Hong, “Qing ‘Gao Yuncong’ an kaoshi,” Yunnan Shifan Daxue xuebao, no. 3 (1989): 90–93. 5. A commoner from Shanxi named Qiao Sande owned a grain store near the Yuanming Yuan where eunuchs of that palace frequently went to buy flour. They purchased it at forty qian per jin. NWFLW, 2148 (QL 49.11.9). See also Wu Zhengge, “Ming Qing taijian shi shi,” Zhongguo pengren, no. 9 (2003): 37. Late-Qing sources indicate the presence of restaurants for eunuchs on palace grounds, but I have not found such records for earlier periods. There were restaurants outside the gates of the Yuanming Yuan that mostly served eunuchs. 6. Lord Macartney’s journal records that a pair of black satin boots cost two and a half taels in 1793. George Macartney, An Embassy to China: Being the Journal Kept by Lord Macartney during His Embassy to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung, 1793–1794, ed. J. L. CranmerByng (London: Longmans, 1962), 244. 7. We know that eunuchs got their haircuts on the outside, because they frequently used this as an excuse to leave the palace. See NWFLW, 0415 (QL 53.5.7). 8. Wu Zhengge, “Ming Qing taijian shi shi,” 37. 9. NWFLW 2164, QL 58.7.29. 10. If the story is true, this eunuch doubtless had found other, nonofficial means of earning money, of the sort that are detailed subsequently in this chapter. 11. GCGS, 4.47 (QL 9.2.4). 12. NWFLW, 2134 (QL 42.12.14). 13. Zhao Shiyu and Zhang Hongyan, “Heishanhui de gushi: Ming Qing huanguan zhengzhi yu minjian shehui,” Lishi yanjiu, no. 4 (2000): 127–92. See also Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 182. 14. See, e.g., NWFLW, 2154 (QL 50.12.18). 15. “We should let it be known to the public that those who work as eunuchs get only five taels each, and that the salary that they get per month is no more than two taels.” Quoted in NWFLW, 2150 (QL 50). 16. NWFZA, 0225 (QL 39.12.26). A case in that first year of the policy’s implementation shows that several chief eunuchs were slow to heed the new rules. Prince Yungiong, chief

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Notes to Pages 203–206

minister of the imperial household, reported that of forty-two eunuchs who had been promoted to supervisory eunuch after the emperor’s edict, thirty-two had met the thirty-year requirement. Of the remaining ten, only one, Xiao Delu, who had been appointed a supervisory eunuch of rank seven, had received his appointment directly from the emperor. The others were appointed in violation of the rules. Yungiong recommended that the seven recommending chief eunuchs receive harsh punishments, which the emperor assented to (except in the case of chief eunuch Yong Qing, whom he exempted with fines). Ibid. 17. NWFZA, 0286 (QL36.3.21). This case also demonstrates how easy it was to leave the palace. The investigators noted that he had simply left without any authorization whatsoever. This was possible because, as the document makes clear, he had a very cordial relationship with his supervisory eunuch, and would sell him his pawn tickets. 18. NWFZA, 0106 (QL 21.9.28). The case also reveals that the chief eunuch had received gifts from officials. In defending himself, he claimed that the official had stayed in his house and planned to stay there again in the future. Rather than accepting rent from the official, he accepted some small gifts: azurite satin for the making of a gown, one piece of blue silk for making coats, one plate of lacquer beads, a mandarin square (worn on official robes to denote rank), two boxes of fruits, and two boxes of sweet cakes. The investigators were clear that these gifts were illegal, as was the taking of allegedly surplus construction materials and the detailing of a supervisory eunuch to work at the construction site of the chief eunuch’s home. 19. NWFZA, 0286 (QL 36.3.21). 20. NWFZA, 0106 (QL 21.9.28), where the tip is referred to as the “rope and wood fee” (shengzhen dengfei). 21. See, e.g., NWFLW, 2155 (QL 52.6.12). 22. NWFLW, 2138 (QL 45.4.24). 23. There were eleven eunuchs stationed at the temple: a supervisory eunuch (Gao Jinyu), a vice-supervisory eunuch (Chen Xuesheng), and nine ordinary eunuchs (one of which was Fan Zhong). NWFZA, 0159 (QL 38.8.1). 24. NWFZA, 0159 (QL 38.8.1). Eunuch Chen was stripped of his supervisory eunuch status and was sentenced to be whipped eighty strokes. His supervisor, Gao Jinyu, also lost his supervisory eunuch status and was reassigned. Three chief eunuchs were also punished; one lost salary for six months, and the other two lost salary for a full year. Fan Zhong was exiled to Dasheng Wula with hard labor. 25. T. S. Whelan and Chao-yü Yang, The Pawnshop in China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1979), 4. 26. Ibid.; Ming-te Pan, Study of Pawnshop in Modern China (1644–1937) (Taiwan: Institute of History, National Taiwan Normal University, 1985). 27. See Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 348–49, and sources cited there. 28. NWFLW, 2148 (QL 49.11.23). 29. This information is drawn from imperial household data following the confiscation of the shop. For the year 1787, it netted an income of 2,819 taels after expenses of 851 taels. NWFZXD, 412.115–22 (QL 53.12.22). 30. Xu Ke, Qing bai lei chao (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 1366. Zhaolian, Xiaoting zalu, Xiaoting xulu (repr., Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1966), vol. 63, xulu 1.373. Archers in this school were originally chosen to work as palace guards. They also accompa-

Notes to Pages 206–209

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nied the emperor on shooting expeditions. When he ordered them to shoot, they would shoot in succession. 31. Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 151–52. Elliott notes that the position of bithesi was often the stepping-stone to a successful official career. In 1775, Dekjimbu was appointed the prefect of Chengdu Prefecture in Sichuan, and awarded the peacock feather for excellence in service defending the government arsenal and grain supplies against attack. Gaozong shilu, 992.252. 32. Qian Shifu, Qingdai zhiguan nianbiao (preface dated 1963; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980), 2089. On the office of surveillance commissioner and its evolution, see R. Kent Guy, Qing Governors and Their Provinces: The Evolution of Territorial Administration in China, 1644–1796 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010), 35. 33. For every 10,000 taels he supposedly paid to the wood merchants, in reality he paid only 8,750 taels. 34. NWFLW, 2148 (QL 49.11.30). 35. NWFLW, 2148 (QL 49.11.30). On the crimes of Dekjimbu generally, see Gaozong shilu, 1218.336 (QL 49.11.7). 36. On the rank of Saling’a, see NWFZXD, 296.48–61 (QL 35.4.25). 37. NWFLW, 2137 (QL 44.11.25). 38. Hu Zhongliang, “Qianlong shiwu zi zhongdou,” Zijincheng, no. 6 (1993): 42. Variolation required a separate building to ensure the child’s isolation. 39. Young-tsu Wong, A Paradise Lost: The Imperial Garden Yuanming Yuan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), 32. It was located in the Nine Continents in Peace (Jiuzhou qingyan) section of the Yuanming Yuan. 40. NWFZA, 0360 (QL 46.5.24). 41. The Jingming Yuan is on the western side of what became the Yihe Yuan, or New Summer Palace, built by the Empress Dowager Cixi. The name of the temple was Xi Da Miao. On the Jingming Yuan, see Victoria M. Cha-Tsu Siu, Gardens of a Chinese Emperor: Imperial Creations of the Qianlong Era, 1736–1796 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2013), 171–204. 42. NWFLW, 2139. Kangxi had begun work on the Jingming Yuan in 1680; Qianlong’s reconstruction took place in the 1740s. Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 313. See also Bianca Maria Rinaldi, Ideas of Chinese Gardens: Western Accounts, 1300–1860 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). 43. For another example, see NWFLW, 2233. The woman, Sui-Li, age sixty, had an eighteen-sui son who was adopted out to the Yang family and then made a eunuch. When he showed up at her house after running away, she was afraid to let him in the door. 44. NWFLW, 2163 (QL 58.3). 45. QDGZXXZL-JQ, 1.5a–6a (YZ 4.8.1). 46. Quoted in NWFLW, 2155 (QL 52.5). 47. LFZZ, 1789 (JQ 12.12.17). This memorial was from the governor-general of Zhili Province, which contained Wanping County. 48. NWFZA, 0091 (QL 20.3.6). Eunuchs did not always use their influence on the outside to help their relatives. Sometimes they used it to intimidate them. In one case, a eunuch taunted his nephew and held him down, threatening to go to the local magistrate and use his influence to make out a claim. NWFLW, 2280 (DG 22.9.8).

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Notes to Pages 209–214

49. NWFZA, 0019 (QL 3.2.11). 50. NWFLW, 2156 (QL 53.5.26). 51. NWFLW, 2110 (QL 7.1.22). 52. See NWFLW, 2277 (Daoguang era). In another case, a eunuch went to his hometown to go into a porcelain-selling business with his older cousin on his father’s side. NWFLW, 2270 (DG 18.9.14). See also NWFLW, 2280 (DG 22.7.13). 53. In addition to the cases cited below, see NWFZA, 0056 (QL8), in which a eunuchmonk and his nephew shelter an escaped eunuch who shares a hometown connection with them. The runaway stays for a month or two (after asking if he could stay for just a few days). Nephew and uncle both defend their sheltering of the runaway eunuch using language of hometown loyalty. In addition, the eunuch-monk uncle defends helping the runaway, using the language of Buddhism: “I knew he was a runaway, and should have taken him back to our chief eunuch to resolve the situation. But I am a monk who has taken my Buddhist vows, and seeing that he asked me so pitifully, I could not send him elsewhere or report him. I should have reported him but was too sympathetic.” 54. NWFZA, 0086 (QL 17.2.18). The saga of Zhao Guotai continued, since he was desperate not to go to Rehe. See NWFZA, 0086 (QL 17.3.22). 55. Wuhua Si pandao bei (jing 3610), in Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian, Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–1991), 76.73–74. On the stele, the eunuchs were identified only as Mr. Zhang, Mr. Song, and Mr. Wang, from the Ruyi Guan (Office of Imperial Manufactures). 56. NWFZA, 0527 (JQ 12.2.27). Chang replied that none did, and that those who sought leave would have to request permission from the chief eunuchs in any case. 57. LFZZ, 1388 (QL 22.3.21). The incident caught Qianlong’s attention, reflected both in his vermillion rescript on the memorial and in an edict issued soon afterward. Gaozong shilu, 536.756–57 (QL 22.4). 58. GSA, no. 221527–001 (QL 39.1.20); NWFLW, 2132 (n.d.); NWFLW, 2131 (QL 39.1.27); NWFLW, 2131 (QL 39.1.10); LFZZ, 0087 (QL 39.1.17). 59. NWFLW, 2117 (QL 23.10). For a similar case, see NWFZA, 0255 (QL 33.8.17): a eunuch fled from the palace and lived in several different temples before going to work as a eunuch monk in a prince’s temple. 60. NWFZA, 0131 (QL 18.11.5). 61. NWFZA, 0243 (QL 31.4.27). 62. For another example, see NWFZA, 0181 (QL 34.6.2). 63. I have seen no mention of regulations prohibiting temples from harboring escaped eunuchs. The closest is a provision in the Daoguang era that prohibited “monasteries, temples, and shops from allowing loiterers to stay within them.” NWFLW, 2296 (DG 28.5.16). 64. Rawski, Last Emperors, 126. See also Michael G. Chang, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 24. 65. GCGS, 4.41 (QL 4.1.16). On Hongyan’s death, see Rawski, Last Emperors, 284. 66. QDGZXXZL-JQ, 1.13b–14a (QL 10.11.19). The prohibition on palace eunuchs becoming friendly with adult princes was strictly enforced. Other cases make clear that adult princes were not to grow friendly with eunuchs, especially those in service of the emperor. In 1778 Prince Yongshu, who was a grandson of the Yongzheng emperor (and therefore

Notes to Pages 215–218

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Qianlong’s cousin), got friendly with some of the imperial household eunuchs—in particular, a supervisory eunuch by the name of Ren Jinfu. The prince gave gifts to Ren, who then permitted the prince to travel to Zaojian Tang, an island on Kunming Lake, in the garden that would become the Yihe Yuan. This was a violation of the rules, not only because a prince and imperial household eunuch should not be friendly with each other, but also because imperial gardens were forbidden spaces. All involved were punished harshly for their wrongdoing. NWFZA, 0336 (QL 43.4.10). Yongshu was the eldest son of Hongyan, the “Yuanming Yuan prince” discussed above. 67. DQHDSL, 1.46 (QL 40). 68. There was likely a scandal involving princes’ eunuchs that took place around 1755. We know nothing about the nature of the scandal except that it involved eunuchs in service of several of Qianlong’s sons and grandsons, some of whom were quite young at the time. Its traces were effectively obliterated. Following Qianlong’s direct orders, the eunuchs implicated were sentenced to cut grass for life at Nan Yuan, wearing the notorious nine-tail locks. NWFZA, 0107 (QL 21.12.17); NWFZA, 0112 (QL 22.12.17). Most of the eunuchs implicated were in service of the eighth prince, Yongxuan (1746–1832), who was just nine at the time. 69. Yao Yuanzhi, Zhuye ting zaji (MS, 1893; repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1997), 2.43–44. 70. See NWFLW, 2150 (QL 50.6.30). 71. “Purchasing” was the term used by one of the guilty parties in the case, who was retelling what happened. 72. Because he was a princely-household eunuch, rules preventing other eunuchs from having to share their salaries with family against their wishes were not applicable. 73. NWFLW, 2164 (QL 58.7.29). The document contains no mention of the mother’s emotions on learning that her son was alive but had been made a eunuch. 74. J. J. Matignon, Les eunuques du Palais Impérial à Pékin, vol. 5 of La Chine hermétique: Superstitions, crime et misère (Souvenirs de biologie sociale), 5th rev. ed. (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1936), 203. 75. LFZZ, 097–1363 (QL 39.7.11). 76. NWFZA, 0082 (QL 11.12.19). 77. NWFZA, 2130 (QL 38.4.10). He then worked in the princely household of a beile prince (beizi) before being assigned to the Imperial Ancestral Temple. The beile prince was fourth highest of twelve titles of imperial nobility. See DOT, 4546. 78. NWFLW, 2244 (DG 6.5.3). In the Jiaqing period this was no longer the case, and eunuchs who left because they found their salaries inadequate were considered runaways, as in the case of the eunuch Li Jiucheng, who ran away because his salary of one and a half taels per month was, he felt, insufficient. LFZZ, 113–1300 (JQ 25). For another illustration, see the case of the eunuch Zhou Xiang, who worked in the household of Prince Li but ran away because the pay was insufficient. He then worked in another princely household for a time until the prince expelled him for poor job performance. NWFLW, 2167 (50) (QL 60.6.3). 79. NWFZA, 05–0254–085 (QL 33.7.4). 80. E.g., see ibid., 05–0536–071 (JQ 17.12.18). 81. The Yuanming Yuan’s buildings were connected by waterways, and a staff of eunuchs punted boats to ferry members of the imperial family between them.

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Notes to Pages 218–223

82. The Imperial Ancestral Temple, as noted above, became the final assignment for eunuchs who had become undesirable. At one point, the ancestral temple had so many elderly and mentally feeble eunuchs that Qianlong became outraged, and ordered the princely households to each provide two eunuchs to serve there. Zhaolian, Xiaoting zalu, 868. 83. Yūnlu’s recommendation is set out in NWFZA, 0067 (QL 13.1.26). For the published rule on the amnesty, see DQHDSL, 1212.1051 (QL13). 84. NWFZA, 0092 (QL 13.4.3). The court noted that had he not turned himself in, the punishment would have been to send him to Dasheng Wula as a slave. As noted in chap. 8, the records of the Imperial Household Department were not reliable. 85. LFZZ, 097–1363 (QL 39.7.11). 86. See, e.g., LFZZ, 113–1300 (JQ 25). 87. NWFZA, 0255 (QL 33.8.17). On the rank of beile princes (beizi), see n. 77. 88. LFZZ, 1629 (JQ 12.6.11). 89. NWFLW, 2163 (QL 58.3). 90. QDGZXXZL-JQ, 1.38a (JQ 4.4.11). Princes of the blood (qinwang) could hire one supervisory eunuch (ranked seven) and forty eunuchs. Their sons, commandery princes (junwang), could hire one supervisory eunuch (ranked eight) and thirty eunuchs. Beile could each have twenty eunuchs, and beizi, ten eunuchs. LFZZ, 1537 (JQ 15.12.12). 91. Reprinted in NWFZA, 0536 (JQ 13.7.2). See also NWFZA, 0535 (JQ 13.6.14); and NWFZA, 0531 (JQ 12), showing the transfer of young eunuchs from a princely household to the palace. 92. QDGZXXZL-JQ, 30 (JQ 16.2.19). 93. NWFLW, 2110 (JQ 16.5.10). 94. On the particularities of eunuch management at the Yuanming Yuan, see Norman A. Kutcher, “Unspoken Collusions: The Empowerment of Yuanming Yuan Eunuchs in the Qianlong Period.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 70, no. 2 (2010): 449–95. 95. NWFZA, 0287 (QL 36.4.27). 96. This is evident from another case that occurred in the very same year, in which the supervisory eunuchs were given permission to live outside the palace for many years. See NWFZA, 0286. In the case of Cao Yi’s supervisory eunuchs, the fact that they worked for the Office of the Imperial Wardrobe suggests that they lived outside the palace, or at the very least owned homes outside. 97. NWFZA, 0223 (QL 30.R2.8). 98. NWFZA, 0378 (QL 48.8.19). “Li Jinzhong and Sun Yu were Shizi Lin eunuchs, who did not know their place and follow their duty. Instead, they crossed into Xieqiqu in the night to catch crabs with Zhang Zhong, which led to a death being caused in a forbidden area [jindi].” Qianlong’s intervention in this case appears in NWFZA, 0378 (QL 48.8.21). He adjusts the sentences of two of the guilty parties. 99. NWFZA, 0225 (QL 39.2.2). For similar cases, see NWFZA, 0187 (QL 35.2.2), where we find the case of a fifteen-year-old eunuch, Xu Jinzhong, who was assigned to Zhaoren Dian, an imperial study in the Forbidden City, but who had been sent to help out at the Tongle Yuan, where imperial entertainments were held in the Yuanming Yuan; and NWFZA, 0192 (QL 35.9.29), the case of the twenty-three-year-old eunuch Song Jinzhong, who served at the Nanchuan Wu in the Yuanming Yuan but who snuck through a breach in the wall to steal from the eunuch Ge Jinchao.

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100. G. C. Stent, “Chinese Eunuchs,” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Shanghai), n.s. 11 (1877): 180. 101. Melissa S. Dale, “With the Cut of a Knife: A Social History of Eunuchs during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) and Republican Periods (1912–1949)” (PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2000), 116. 102. NWFZA, 0115 (QL 16.6.17). 103. GCGS, 4.57 (QL 16.R5.30). For another small-scale gambling case from the early Qianlong period, see NWFZA, 0230 (QL 30.12.4). 104. NWFLW, 2160 (QL 56.6.10). 105. See, e.g., NWFZA, 0524 (JQ 11.12.10), involving twenty-eight eunuchs and two supervisory eunuchs; and NWFZA, 0536 (JQ 13.7.2), a substantial case that also involved the complicity of a supervisory eunuch. 106. NWFZA, 0545 (JQ 14.11.23). 107. NWFZA, 0545 (n.d.); NWFZA, 0545 (JQ 14.11.25). The gambling parlor in these cases used playing cards (dou zhipai). 108. In 1809 he confessed that his gambling parties had begun seventeen or eighteen years before. C O N C LU S I O N

1. On jiaren, see chap. 7. 2. NWFLW, 2167 (QL 60.4.23). See also NWFLW, 2168 (QL 60.8.29). 3. The cases have some unusual similarities, not the least of which is the fact that in each case a veterinarian appears as the eunuch’s friend. 4. NWFLW, 2167 (QL 60.6.3). 5. Yalanga had inherited this rank in 1780. QSG, 162.4850. The mansion survives as a primary school, situated in the western part of the city, on Wenhua Jie. 6. GSA, no. 195139 (QL 51.R7.29). For other cases of princely-household eunuchs permitted to live outside the princely establishments, see NWFLW, 2263 (DG 15.10.24), in which a eunuch rents rooms outside the princely household, but refuses to vacate unless he is reimbursed for repairs; and LFZZ, 1560 (JQ 19.8.7) in which eunuch Dong Jinxi sells a boy he pretends is his son. 7. See Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976). 8. Even before the Eight Trigrams uprising, the Jiaqing emperor made efforts to tighten up control of eunuchs. In 1811 he noted that, while reading Qianlong-period records, he had come across the case of a palace eunuch who had originally worked at a princely household. When he returned to the princely household for a five-day visit, he used the time to gossip about the court. The Jiaqing emperor thenceforth prohibited eunuchs who had come in from the princely households from visiting their former masters. QDGZXXZL-JQ, JQ 16.2.19. He also ordered that eunuchs at the Yuanming Yuan be extra careful in guarding the entrance to the garden palace, to be sure no common people were entering. Ibid., JQ 16.1.29. 9. Renzong Rui huangdi shilu (hereafter Renzong shilu), in Qing shilu (repr., Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1986, 292.991–1 (JQ 19.6). 10. QDGZXXZL-JQ, JQ 19.5.9.

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11. Albert Mann, “The Influence of Eunuchs in the Politics and Economy of the Ch’ing Court, 1861–1907” (MA thesis, University of Washington, 1957), 81; DQHDSL, 1217.2a. 12. He may have been going by the nickname “The Pagoda-Bearing God.” NWFZA, 2233 (JQ 19.6). 13. NWFZA, 0605 (JQ 24.11.7). 14. For the Jiaqing emperor’s comments on the problem, see Renzong shilu, juan 244–45 (JQ 16.6.). 15. NWFLW, 2303 (DG 30.8.15). 16. See NWFLW, 2303 (n.d.), 2287 (DG 14.9.28), and 2288 (n.d.). 17. This is the position taken by historian Li Yuchuan, who undertook extraordinarily careful oral histories regarding Li Lianying beginning in the early 1960s. One of his chief informants was a man named Li Rui, who had managed the affairs of Li Lianying’s adopted nephew, Li Chengwu. Li Rui had a powerful memory, and what he had to tell of the history of Li Lianying came directly from the mouth of Li Chengwu. Another informant was an old man named Xu Zhenhua. Xu’s father, Xu Shouzeng, was a commander-general in the Imperial Guard, and his mother’s father’s sister had been the powerful eunuch Cui Yugui’s sisterin-law. Li Yuchuan, Li Lianying gongting shenghuo xiezhen (Beijing: Changcheng Chubanshe, 1995), 243–44. 18. NWFLW, 2159 (QL 55.8.22).

se le cte d b ibl io g ra phy

Arlington, L. C., and William Lewisohn. In Search of Old Peking. 1935. Reprint, New York: Paragon, 1967. Bartlett, Beatrice S. Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China, 1723– 1820. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Beijing shi dang’anguan ‫ؑࠇק‬ᚾூᙴ. Beijing simiao lishi ziliao ‫ڝࠇק‬ᐔᖵ‫׾‬ᇷற. Beijing: Zhongguo Dang’an Chubanshe, 1997. Beijing tushuguan jinshi zubian ‫ࠇק‬ቹ஼ᙴ८‫ิف‬ᒳ. Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian ‫ࠇק‬ቹ஼ᙴ៲խഏᖵ‫ءࢷࠥفז‬Ⴊᒳ. Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 1989–1991. Bell, John. Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia, to Diverse Parts of Asia. 2 vols. Glasgow: Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1763. Book, A. S., K. B. Starzyk, and V. L. Quinsey. “The Relationship between Testosterone and Aggression: A Meta-Analysis.” Aggression and Violent Behavior 6, no. 6 (2001): 579–99. Brownell, Susan, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, eds. Chinese Femininities / Chinese Masculinities: A Reader. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Chai E. ௎ᆽ (1893–1936). Fan tian lu conglu ත֚ᡔហᙕ. Manuscript, 1926. Reprint, Taibei: Yu Dian Wenhua Shiye Youxian Gongsi, 1976. Chang, Michael G. A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007. Chang Te-ch’ang. “The Economic Role of the Imperial Household (Nei-Wu-Fu) in the Ch’ing Dynasty.” Journal of Asian Studies 31, no. 2 (February 1972): 243–74. Chen Zilong ຫ՗ᚊ (1608–1647) et al. Ming jingshi wenbian ࣔᆖ‫֮׈‬ᒳ. Completed 1638. Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1962. Crossley, Pamela Kyle. “Review Article: The Rulerships of China.” American Historical Review 97, no. 5 (December 1992): 1468–83. 289

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Goodrich, L. Carrington, and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. (Abbreviated in the notes as DOMB.) Goossaert, Vincent. The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007. Grand Council Archives. Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. Taiwan. (Abbreviated in the notes as GCA.) Grand Secretariat Archives. Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. Taiwan. (Abbreviated in the notes as GSA.) Gu gong bowuyuan Zhanggu bu ਚ୰໑ढೃ༳ਚຝ. Zhanggu congbian ༳ਚហᒳ. 1928– 1930. Reprint, Taibei: Guo Feng Chubanshe, 1964. Gu Yanwu ᥽ङࣳ (1613–1682). Ri zhi lu ֲवᙕ. Qing printing, 1695, 1834. Reprint, Taibei: Wenshizhe Chubanshe, 1979. Gu Yanwu ᥽ङࣳ, Huang Rucheng ႓‫( ګڿ‬1799–1837), and Huang Kan ႓ࠑ (1886–1935). Ri zhi lu jishi ֲवᙕႃᤩ. Reprint. Taibei: Shijie Shuju, 1968. Gu Yanwu ᥽ङࣳ and Liu Jiuzhou Ꮵ԰੊. Xin yi Gu Tinglin wenji ᄅ᤟᥽ॼ֮ࣥႃ. Reprint, Taibei: Sanmin Shuju, 2000. Guan Xiaolian ᣂ‫ݕ‬კ, Qu Liusheng ࡹք‫س‬, Wang Xiaohong ‫׆‬՛૙, and the staff of the First Historical Archives. Kangxi chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi ൈዺཛየ֮‫ޅڹ‬ ৉ኹ٤᤟. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1996. Guan Xiaolian ᣂ‫ݕ‬კ, Qu Liusheng ࡹք‫س‬, Wang Xiaohong ‫׆‬՛૙ Wang Xi‫׆‬໛, and the staff of the First Historical Archives. Yongzheng chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi ሸ‫إ‬ཛየ֮‫ޅڹ‬৉ኹ٤᤟. Hefei: Huangshan Shushe, 1998. Gugong bowuyuan ਚ୰໑ढೃ. Guanyu Jiangning zhizao Caojia dang’an shiliao ᣂ࣍‫ۂ‬ኑ ៣ທඦ୮ᚾூ‫׾‬ற. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1975. . Qinding zongguan Neiwu fu xianxing zeli er zhong ཱུࡳ᜔ጥփ೭ࢌ෼۩ঞࠏԲጟ. 1840. Reprint, Haikou: Hainan Chubanshe, 2000. Gugong bowuyuan wenxian guan ਚ୰໑ढೃ֮᣸ᙴ. Wenxian congbian ֮᣸ហᒳ. Reprint. Taibei: Guo Feng Chubanshe, 1930, 1943. Guoli gugong bowuyuan ഏ‫م‬ਚ୰໑ढೃ. Gongzhong dang Qianlong chao zouzhe ୰խᚾ ೓ၼཛ৉ኹ. Taibei: Guoli Gugong Bowuyuan, 1982. Guy, R. Kent. “The Development of the Evidential Research Movement: Ku Yen-Wu and the Ssu-k’u Ch’uan-Shu.” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 16, nos. 1–2 (1984): 97–116. . Qing Governors and Their Provinces: The Evolution of Territorial Administration in China, 1644–1796. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010. Ha Enzhong শ஑࢘. “Shunzhi huangdi yanjin taijian gan zheng de chiyu ႉए઄০ᣤᆃ֜ ጑եਙऱ඗ᘱ.” Lishi dang’an ᖵ‫׾‬ᚾூ, no. 3 (2015): 2. Hammond, Kenneth James. “History and Literati Culture: Towards an Intellectual Biography of Wang Shizhen (1526–1590).” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1994. He Xiaorong ۶‫ݕ‬ዊ. “Mingdai huanguan yu Fojiao ࣔ‫ז‬৚ࡴፖ۵ඒ.” Nankai xuebao ত ၲᖂ໴, no. 1 (2000): 3. Hegel, Robert E., and Katherine N. Carlitz. Writing and Law in Late Imperial China: Crime, Conflict, and Judgment. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. Hongzhou ‫ؖ‬ච (1712–1770). Ji gu zhai quan ji ᒝ‫ײ‬ស٤ႃ. Qing printing, 1746. Reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2010.

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Hou Renzhi ঀոհ et al. Beijing lishi ditu ji ‫ࠇק‬ᖵ‫چ׾‬ቹႃ. Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1988. Hu Zhongliang ઺࢘ߜ. “Qianlong shiwu zi zhongdou ೓ၼԼն՗ጟ࿃.” Zijincheng ࿫ᆃ ৄ, no. 6 (1993): 42–44. . “Tantan ‘Weng Shan zha cao’ ᓫᓫ’Ṩ՞ㅧ౻.” Gugong Bowuyuan yuankan ਚ୰໑ ढೃೃ‫ ע‬3 (1986): 90–92. Huang, Martin W. Negotiating Masculinities in Late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006. Huang, Pei. Autocracy at Work: A Study of the Yung-Cheng Period, 1723–1735. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974. Huang Huai ႓෢ (1367–1449) and Yang Shiqi ᄘՓ࡛ (1365–1444). Lidai mingchen zouyi ᖵ‫۝ټז‬৉ᤜ. Ming printing, 1416. Reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1989. Hucker, Charles O. A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985. (Abbreviated in the notes as DOT.) . “Su-Chou and the Agents of Wei Chung-Hsien, 1626.” In Two Studies on Ming History. Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies 12. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1971. Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, 1644–1912. 2 vols. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943. (Abbreviated in the notes as ECCP.) Idema, W. L., Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer. Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature. Harvard East Asian Monographs, vol. 250. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Jay, Jennifer W. “Another Side of Chinese Eunuch History: Castration, Marriage, Adoption, and Burial.” Canadian Journal of History 28, no. 3 (1993): 459–78. Jiang Liangqi ᓏߜ㌙ (1723–1788/89), ed. Donghua lu ࣟဎᙕ. Qianlong ed. Reprint, Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009. Jiang Tingxiᓏ‫ݪ‬ᙔ et al. Gujin tushu jicheng ‫ײ‬վቹ஼ႃ‫ګ‬. Completed, 1725. Reprint. Shanghai: Zhonghua Shuju, 1934. (Abbreviated in the notes as GJTSJC.) Jiao Hong ྡྷẐ (1540–1620). Yutang congyu ‫د‬ഘហ፿. Ming printing, 1618. Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1981. Jin Liang ८ඩ (1878–1962). Qing gong shilue ෎୰‫׾‬ฃ. N.p., 1933. Jing Li ᆖ๙. Qing Neiwu fu dang’an wenxian huibian 㶝㡕೭ࢌᚾூ֮᣸Ⴊᒳ. Guojia tushuguan cang lishi dang’an wenxian congkan ഏ୮ቹ஼ᙴ៲ᖵ‫׾‬ᚾூ֮᣸ហ‫ע‬. Beijing: Quanguo Tushuguan Wenxian Suowei Fuzhi Zhongxin, 2004. Jones, William C. The Great Qing Code. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Kahn, Harold. Monarchy in the Emperor’s Eyes: Image and Reality in the Ch’ien-lung Reign. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Kessler, Lawrence D. K’ang-hsi and the Consolidation of Ch’ing Rule, 1661–1684. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. Kuhn, Philip A. Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990. Kungang ഼ࡽ (1836–1907) et al. Da Qing huidian shili (Guangxu) Օ෎ᄎࠢࠃࠏ（٠ፃ）. Qing printing, 1899. Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1991. (Abbreviated in the notes as DQHDSL.)

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Kutcher, Norman A. “The Death of the Xiaoxian Empress: Bureaucratic Betrayals and the Crises of Eighteenth-Century Chinese Rule.” Journal of Asian Studies 56, no. 3 (August 1997): 708–25. . Mourning in Late Imperial China: Filial Piety and the State. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. . “Unspoken Collusions: The Empowerment of Yuanming Yuan Eunuchs in the Qianlong Period.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 70, no. 2 (2010): 449–95. Lang Ying ૴ᅛ (1487?–1566?). Qi xiu lei gao Ԯଥᣊᒚ. Qing printing, 1775. Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959?, 1981. Lee, Robert H. G. The Manchurian Frontier in Ch’ing History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970. Legge, James, trans. The Works of Mencius. Reprint, New York: Dover, 1970. Lei Li ሼ៖ (1505–1581). Huang Ming da zheng ji ઄ࣔՕਙಖ. Introduction dated 1632. Reprint, Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe, 2002. Leng Dong ‫מܐ‬. Bei yange di shouhushen: Huanguan yu zhongguo zhengzhi ๯⿄໊ऱ‫ښ‬ᥨ ళ : ৚ࡴፖխഏਙए. Changchun: Jilin Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1990. . “Shilun huanguan de shengli yu xinli tedian ᇢᓵ৚ࡴऱ‫س‬෻ፖ֨෻௽រ.” Dongbei shida xuebao ࣟ‫ק‬ஃՕᖂ໴, no. 5 (1988): 46–50. Li Xisheng ‫ݦޕ‬ᆣ (1864–1905). Gengzi guo bian ji ࢊ՗ഏ᧢ಖ. Qing printing, 1902. Reprint, Shanghai: Guji Chubanshe, 2002. Li Yuchuan ‫دޕ‬՟. Li Lianying gongting shenghuo xiezhen ‫ޕ‬ᓊ૎୰‫سݪ‬੒ᐊట. Beijing: Changcheng Chubanshe, 1995. Li Zongwan ᚐࡲᆄ (1705–1759). Jingcheng guji kao ࠇৄ‫ە᠌ײ‬. Qing manuscript collected by Xie Guozhen ᝔ഏᄙ. Beijing: Guji Chubanshe, 1981. Liang Shaojie ඩฯໃ. “Gang Tie beike zakao: Mingdai huanguan shi de yige mi ଶᥳᅾࠥ ᠧ‫זࣔ—ە‬৚ࡴ‫׾‬ऱԫଡᝎ.” Dalu zazhi Օຬᠧ፾ 91, no. 5 (November 1995): 9–25. Liang Xizhe ඩ‫ୃݦ‬. Yongzheng huangdi ሸ‫إ‬઄০. Taibei: Zhishufang Chubanshe, 2001. Liu Guilin Ꮵெࣥ. “Qianlong di yan xun taijian yi li ೓ၼ০ᣤಝ֜጑ԫࠏ.” Zijin Cheng ࿫ ᆃৄ, no. 3 (1986): 42–44. Liu Hongwu Ꮵពࣳ. “Zijin Cheng nei Fengxian Dian xiujian gailüe ࿫ᆃৄ㡕࡚٣ᄥଥ৬ ᄗฃ.” Lishi dang’an ᖵ‫׾‬ᚾூ, no. 3 (2009): 53–56. Liu Ruoyu Ꮵૉჟ (b.1541/1584?). Zhuo zhong zhi ಼խ‫ݳ‬. Completed c. 1641. Reprint, Taibei: Yiwen Yinshuguan, 1967. Liu Zhigang Ꮵ‫ݳ‬ଶ. “Kangxi di dui Mingchao junchen de pinglun ji qi zhengzhi yingxiang ൈዺ০ኙࣔཛ‫۝ܩ‬ऱေᓵ֗ࠡਙएᐙ᥼.” Qingshi yanjiu, no. 1 (2009): 103–12. Lu, Lex Jing. “Appearance Politics, Physiognomy, and Leadership Image: Building Political Legitimacy in Late Imperial and Modern China.” PhD diss., Syracuse University, 2016. Lu Lu ຬሁ. Gongting xing dang’an: Taijian yu gongnü xingshi ୰‫ࢤݪ‬ᚾூˍʳ֜጑ፖ୰Ֆࢤ ࠃ. Taibei: Jiuyi Chubanshe, 1995. Lu Qi ᕙྰ and Liu Jingyi Ꮵጲᆠ. “Qingdai taijian Enji Zhuang yingdi ෎‫֜ז‬጑஑ᛎ᪾ ჊‫چ‬.” Gugong bowuyuan yuankan ਚ୰໑ढೃೃ‫ ע‬3 (1979): 51–58. Lu Yi ຬ⍰. Bing yi man ji ఐၝደಖ. Ming printing, c. 1540. Reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, [2002].

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Lufu zouzhe ᙕ೫৉ኹ. Palace memorials, Grand Council copies. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing. (Abbreviated in the notes as LFZZ.) Luo Chongliang ᢅശߜ. “Cong dang’an cailiao kan Qianlong nianjian taijian de chutao ൕ ᚾூ‫ޗ‬ற઎೓ၼ‫ڣ‬ၴ֜጑ऱ‫נ‬ಲ.” Qingshi yanjiu tongxun ෎‫׾‬ઔߒຏಛ, no. 4 (1986): 21–24. Macartney, George. An Embassy to China: Being the Journal Kept by Lord Macartney during His Embassy to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung, 1793–1794. Edited by J. L. Cranmer-Byng. London: Longmans, 1962. Mann, Albert. “The Influence of Eunuchs in the Politics and Economy of the Ch’ing Court, 1861–1907.” MA thesis, University of Washington, 1957. Mao Yigong ֻԫֆ (jinshi 1589). Lidai neishi kao ᖵ‫ז‬փࠊ‫ە‬. 1615. Reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1995. Matignon, J. J. Les eunuques du Palais Impérial à Pékin. Vol. 5 of La Chine hermétique: Superstitions, crime et misère (Souvenirs de biologie sociale), 5th rev. ed. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1936. McMorran, Ian. The Passionate Realist: An Introduction to the Life and Political Thought of Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692). Hong Kong: Sunshine Book Co., 1992. Meng Sen ࡯ཤ (1868–1937/1938?). Qing chu san da yian kaoshi ෎ॣԿՕጊூ‫ە‬ኔ. 1935. Reprint, Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1966. Mitamura, Taisuke. Chinese Eunuchs: The Structure of Intimate Politics. Clarendon, VT: Tuttle, 1992. Mitamura Taisuke Կ‫ޘض‬௠‫ܗ‬. Kangan: Sokkin seiji no kōzō ৚ࡴˍʳ ೡ२ਙएのዌທ. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1963. Mote, Frederick W. “The T’u-Mu Incident of 1449.” In Chinese Ways in Warfare, edited by Frank A. Kierman Jr. and John K. Fairbank, 243–72. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974. Naquin, Susan. Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976. . Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. . “True Confessions: Criminal Interrogations as Sources for Ch’ing History.” National Palace Museum Bulletin 9, no. 1 (1976): 1–17. Neiwu fu laiwen փ೭ࢌࠐ֮. Lateral communications involving the Imperial Household Department. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing. (Abbreviated in the notes as NWFLW.) Neiwu fu zouan փ೭ࢌ৉ூ. Palace memorials from the Imperial Household Department. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing. (Abbreviated in the notes as NWFZA.) Neiwu fu zouxiaodang փ೭ࢌ৉ᔭᚾ. Expenditure records of the Imperial Household Department. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing. (Abbreviated in the notes as NWFZXD.) Oxnam, Robert B. Ruling from Horseback: Manchu Politics in the Oboi Regency, 1661–1669. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Pan Junying ᑰঊ૎. “Qingdai Neiwu fu zouan ji qi neirong jieshao ෎‫ז‬փ೭ࢌ৉ூ֗ࠡ փ୲տฯ.” Lishi dang’an ᖵ‫׾‬ᚾூ, no. 2 (2005): 116–19.

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Yao Yuanzhi ৔ցհ (1773/1776–1852). Zhuye ting zaji ‫ێ‬ᆺॼᠧಖ. Manuscript, 1893. Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1982, 1997. Ye Sheng ᆺฐ (1420–1474). Shui dong riji ֲֽࣟಖ. First printing, Ming Hongzhi era. Qing printing, 1680. Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980. Yongzheng ሸ‫( إ‬1678–1735). Da yi jue mi lu Օᆠᤚಮᙕ. Qing printing, 1729. Reprint, Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1969. Yongzheng ሸ‫( إ‬1678–1735) et al. Yongzheng shangyu neige ሸ‫إ‬Ղᘱ㡕Ꮉ. Completed, 1741. Reprint, Beijing: Airusheng Shuzihua Jishu Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2009. Yü, Ying-shih. “Some Preliminary Observations on the Rise of Ch’ing Confucian Intellectualism.” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 11, no. 3 (1981): 105–46. Yu Haoxu ᇄ௯‫ ڳ‬and Rao Guoqing ᤰഏᐜ. Wan Sitong yu “Ming shi.” ᆄཎ‫ٵ‬ፖπࣔ ‫׾‬ρ. Ningbo Shi: Ningbo Chubanshe, 2008. Yu Huaqing ‫܇‬ဎॹ. Zhongguo huanguan zhidu shi խഏ৚ࡴࠫ৫‫׾‬. Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2006. Yūnlu ւᆂ (1695–1767). Shizong Xian huangdi shangyu baqi ‫ࡲ׈‬ᖆ઄০ՂᘱԶ዁. Compiled, 1731. Reprint, Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1983. Zelin, Madeleine. The Magistrate’s Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch’ing China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Zha Shenxing ਷შ۩ (1650–1727). Ren hai ji Գ௧ಖ. Qing printing, 1851. Reprint, 2 vols., Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2002. Zhang Qin ີ⇵ (1861–1949). Kangxi zheng yao ൈዺਙ૞. Qing printing, 1910. Reprint, Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Guji Chubanshe, 2012. Zhang, Ting. “ ‘Penitence Silver’ and the Politics of Punishment in the Qianlong Reign (1736–1796).” Late Imperial China 31, no. 2 (2010): 34–68. Zhang Tingyu ്‫( دݪ‬1672–1755) et al. Ming shi ࣔ‫׾‬. Qing printing, 1739. Reprint, Taibei: Tingwen Shuju, 1980. Zhang Xuesong ്ຳ࣪. “Qingdai yilai de taijian miao tanxi ෎‫ࠐאז‬ऱ֜጑ᐔ൶࣫.” Qingshi yanjiu ෎‫׾‬ઔߒ 4 (2009): 89–96. Zhang Zhongchen ്٘‫ݵ‬. “Yige taijian de jingli: Huiyi wo de zufu ‘xiaodezhang’ ԫଡ֜ ጑ऱᆖᖵ——‫ڃ‬ᖋ‫ݺ‬ऱల‫‘׀‬՛ᐚ്.’ ” In Tianjin wenshi ziliao xuanji ੍֚֮‫׾‬ᇷற ᙇᙀ, 130–229. Tianjin: Tianjin Renmin Chubanshe, 1981. Zhao Erxun ᎓ዿ༎ (1844–1927) et al. Qing shi gao ෎‫׾‬ᒚ. Taibei: Dingwen Shuju, 1981. (Abbreviated in the notes as QSG.) Zhao Shiyu ᎓ዿ༎ and Zhang Hongyan ෎‫׾‬ᒚ. “Heishanhui de gushi: Ming Qing huanguan zhengzhi yu minjian shehui ႕՞ᄎऱਚࠃˍʳ ࣔ෎৚ࡴਙएፖ‫ا‬ၴषᄎ.” Lishi yanjiu ᖵ‫׾‬ઔߒ, no. 4 (2000): 127–39. Zhao Yi ᎓ᜠ (1727–1814). Gai yu cong kao ữᕉហ‫ە‬. Qing printing, 1790. Reprint, Taibei: Xinwenfeng Chuban Gongsi, 1975. Zhaolian ਟ⯟ (1776–1829/1830). Xiaoting Zalu ᏶ॼᠧᙕ. Completed, c. Daoguang period. Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980. Zhaoqing ٢ᐜ. Zongguan Neiwu fu tang xianxing zeli ᜔ጥփ೭ࢌഘ෼۩ঞࠏ. N.p., 1870. Permalink: http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/007568310/catalog. Zheng Tianting ᔤ֚஧. Qing shi tan wei ෎‫׾‬൶პ. First printing, 1946. Reprint, Beijing: Beijing Daxue Chubanshe, 1999. . Tan wei ji ൶პႃ. Reprint. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1980.

300

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Zhenjun ᔼၫ (1857–1920). Tian zhi ou wen ֚সೝፊ. Qing printing, 1907. Reprint, Taibei: Wenhai Chubanshe, 1967. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan խഏรԫᖵ‫׾‬ᚾூᙴ. Kangxi qijuzhu ൈዺದࡺࣹ. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984. . Qianlong chao shangyu dang ೓ၼཛՂᘱᚾ. Beijing Shi: Dang’an Chubanshe, 1991. . Yongzheng chao qijuzhu ce ሸ‫إ‬ཛದࡺࣹ‫ם‬. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1993. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi and Hebei Sheng Hejian Xian weiyuanhui խഏԳ‫ا‬ਙए࠰೸ᄎᤜ.ࣾ‫ק‬ઊࣾၴᗼࡡ୉ᄎ. Hejian xian wenshi ziliao. ࣾၴᗼ֮ ‫׾‬ᇷற. Hejian: [Zhengxie Hejian Xian Weiyuanhui], 1986. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo խ؇ઔߒೃᖵ‫׾‬፿ߢઔߒࢬ. Ming shilu ࣔ ኔᙕ. Taibei: Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan Lishi Yuyan Yanjiusuo, 1966. Zhu Guozhen ‫ڹ‬ഏጜ (1557–1632). Yong chuang xiaopin ྂᐏ՛঴. Ming printing, 1622. Reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959. Zhupi zouzhe ธ‫ޅ‬৉ኹ. Imperially rescripted palace memorials. First Historical Archives (Zhongguo Diyi Lishsi Dang’anguan), Beijing. (Abbreviated in the notes as ZPZZ.)

glossary-index

Beihai ‫ק‬௧: Wei Zhu’s confinement in Tuancheng ቸৄ, 117, 118 fig 8, 121; Yong’an Si ‫ڝڜة‬ʳ(Buddhist temple), 166, 186, 205, 278n41, 282n23 beile ߦ೬ (princely status), 240n30, 264n45, 285n77; of Manduhū, 115, 262n12; number of eunuchs of, 286n90 Bell, John, 101, 260n84, 261n94 Bells and Drums Office (Zhonggu Si ᤪቔ‫)׹‬, 250n43; case of Huo Yingbo ᙥᚨਹ (lowranking eunuch in Bells and Drums Office), 52; Hucker’s description of Ming-era office, 250n43; plays staged for emperor by, 242n67 Bi Wanbang ฅᆄ߶ (eunuch), 65 Bian Yongqing ᢰ‫ة‬㶝 (eunuch), 249n29 bingbi ऺ࿝ (wielding the brush). See eunuch literacy bithesi ࿝ࢅ‫( ڤ‬clerks): Dekjimbu’s ᐚ‫܌‬ၞؒ position as, 206, 283n31; at Jingshi Fang, 78; at Shenxing Si, 179 Board of Personnel (Li Bu ‫ٴ‬ຝ): careless nature of Qianlong-era eunuch personnel records, 143, 236; and Shunzhi’s construction of the Qianqing Gong, 66; Zhang Jiuwei ്԰პ (department director of), 65 Board of Punishments (Xing Bu ٩ຝ): case of Li Jinzhong ‫ޕ‬ၞ࢘ (Kangxi-era eunuch), 76; and power of eunuch connections, 52; Wei Zhu’s case investigated by Foge ۵௑, 118–120; xingke tiben ٩ઝᠲ‫( ء‬routine

accounting of eunuch numbers: annual census of (1747–1806), 166–167, 168 fig 9; censuses of eunuchs serving life sentences cutting grass, 280n83; estimates of eunuchs at Kangxi’s court, 274–275n97; and princely-household eunuchs, 216–217, 219, 271n43; Qianlong’s ordering of an annual census of, 166, 172, 215, 275n100, 275n102; Republican-period census of temple residents, 22; and Rituals of Zhou (Zhou li ࡌ៖), 71, 164. See also Board of Personnel (Li Bu) adoption and eunuchs: as perversion of fatherson relationship, 39, 73; case of Cao Qin ඦཱུ (adoptive son of Ming eunuch Cao Jixiang ඦ‫ٳ‬บ), 162; case of Huo Dongzhu ᙥࣟ‫ڹ‬, 52; case of Li Guofu ‫ޕ‬ഏ᎖ (adopted son of Han Zanzhou ឌᢥ੊), 29; case of Meng Erniu ࡯Բ‫݌‬, 164; case of Prince Yūntang’s offering of his son to Wei Zhu, 121; case of Zhao Gao ᎓೏ (Qin-dynasty eunuch), 163; of kidnapped boys during the Tang, 163; Ming dynasty practices of, 163–164 Alingga ॳᨋॳ, 111–112 An Dehai ‫ڜ‬ᐚ௧ (late Qing eunuch), 156, 272n55 Atwell, William Stewart, 34 Bahana ֣শ౏ (Manchu minister), 65 Bartlett, Beatrice S., 125 Bei Jinzhong ߦၞ࢘ (runaway eunuch), 279n71

301

302

index

Board of Punishments (continued) memorials) of, 182; Yongzheng’s edict regarding eunuchs currying favor for personal gain (zuanying ᨵᛜ), 127 Board of Revenue (Hu Bu֪ຝ), Hao Jie ಸໃ (supervising secretary), 49–50 Board of Rites (Li Bu ៖ຝ): eunuchs’ involvement in court rituals, Hao Jie ಸໃ (supervising secretary of Board of Revenue) on, 49–50; records of eunuchs kept by Princely Household Department, 216–217, 219; and self-castration, 170. See also Bootai (Board of Rites official) Board of War (Bing Bu ܎ຝ), Cui Chengxiu ാ‫( ߐܧ‬minister of Board of War), 73 Board of Works (Gong Bu ՠຝ): Chen Youping (vice-minister of), 57; and hierarchy of Shunzhi’s “inner palace,” 65 Boihonoߦࡉᘭ, 261n91 Book of Changes (Yi jing ࣐ᆖ), 243n17; and Qianlong’s understanding of perils of prosperity, 145–146; Wang Fuzhi’s reading of hexagram kun ࡗ, 31; Wang Fuzhi’s reading of yin and yang, 30–31 Book of Songs (Shijing ᇣᆖ), on women and eunuchs, 3–4 Bootai অ௠ (Board of Rites ៖ຝ official): collusion with Yūnsy, 135; confinement of Yūnti supervised by, 135; oversight of return of eunuchs to their home areas, 132–133, 135; his title, guanli libu shiwu ጥ෻៖ຝࠃ೭, 267n28 Boxer Rebellion: Cixi’s support of Boxers, 6–7; looting in wake of, 265n62 Boxue Hongci ໑ᖂពဲ examination, 72, 86 bribery of eunuchs, and their need to fund retirement, 105–106, 203 brush-wielding eunuchs. See eunuch literacy Buddhism: eunuch-monk Yu Ronghuan Պዊᅈ, 211–212; eunuch-monk Zhang Feng ്Ꮥ, 212; eunuch-monk Zhu Xiang, 213; fluidity of identity between eunuchs and Buddhist monks, 213–214; lama-eunuchs in Yong’an Si, 186; language of Buddhism used to help runaway eunuch, 284n53; Shunzhi’s devotion to Chan (Zen) Buddhism, 46, 85; temple and monastery honoring Guanyin built by Gu Wenxing, 91; temples (see Chanfu Si; Fatong Temple; Jingyin Temple; Wall of Sravasti; Wuhua Temple; Yong’an Si); temples as temporary refuge of runaway eunuchs, 212–213, 284n63. See also Guanyin

Bujun tongling Yamen ‫ޡ‬૨อᏆᇒ॰ (Office of the Captain-General of the Gendarmerie), 133, 190 Cai Shengyuan ᓐ֒ց, 91n4 Cao Huachunඦ֏ෆ (Chongzhen’s chief eunuch), 249n29; opening of Zhangyi Gate to allow Li Zicheng to enter, 48–49; and Wang Jinshan, 61–62 Cao Jie ඦᆏ (eunuch), and fall of Eastern Han, 129 Cao Yi ඦᆠ (Qianlong-era eunuch), 221–222, 286n96 castration: denoted by word “eunuch” in English, 20; as punishment inflicted on prisoners of war or criminals, 40; as punishment inflicted on sons of criminals or rebels, 169; selfcastration (sizi jingshen ߏ۞෣ߪ), 170–171; self-castration of Gang Tie, 18 castration of eunuchs: age at, 12–13, 177, 217, 277n11; belief in regeneration of organs by consuming brains of young boys, 164n88; and biological identifiers, xvii, 178, 193; case of kidnapping of Liju, 216; “cutting it all off,” xv, xvii; and purity (jing ෣), xxviii, 95; ritual of placing severed genitals on roof beam, 202; and term huozhe ‫( ृ־‬lit., “one who has been burned with fire”), 246n69; and their growth, 12, 241nn37–38; and their life spans, 241n33 censors and Censorate: censor Ji Kaisheng ࡱၲ‫س‬, 65–66; censor Liu Wulong Ꮵ‫ܦ‬ᚊ on corruption in Fanyi police force, 190; censor Wang Hui on eunuchs’ developing their own households, 162; censor Yang Lian ᄘዮ on “spraying and sweeping” by eunuchs, 157; censor Yin Chonggao ձശ೏ on eunuch corruption, 38; censor Zhu Yixin’s ‫ڹ‬ԫᄅ criticism of dispatching Li Lianying on military mission, 273; on Ming court attire, 250n37 census information. See accounting of eunuch numbers Chai E. ௎ᆽ, 272n55 Chanfu Si ᤭ጝ‫ڝ‬, 166 Chang, Michael G., 269n6 Chang Hai ൄ௧ (one of Yūnsy’s eunuch’s), 113 Chang Te-ch’ang, 240n28 Changchun Yuan ९ਞႼ at Yuanming Yuan Ⴝ ࣔႼ: Liang Jiugong’s house arrest in West Garden, 96, 97; location of, xxiv map 1 Changchun Yuan ዃਞႼ imperial villa in northwest Beijing, 136, 267n43; Buddhist temple

index at, 213; Liang Jiugong and Li Yu’s service to Kangxi at, 91 Chen Fu ຫጝ: as imperial adviser, 106; as imperial guard in Yongzheng era, 98, 100; and punishment of Father Pedrini, 98–100, 260n79; titles and positions awarded to, 98, 100, 107 Chen Jinchao ຫၞཛ (gardener eunuch at Yuanming Yuan), 236 Chen Mingxia ຫ‫ټ‬୙, membership in Fushe ༚ष, 54 Chen Xuesheng (supervisory eunuch at Yong’an Si), 205, 282nn23–24 chief eunuchs (zongguan taijian ᜔ጥ֜጑): bribing of, 203, 282n18; high status of, 20, 52; and imperial edicts in Guochao gong shi, 9, 70; individual eunuchs as (see Cao Huachun; Gu Wenxing; Li Lianying; Wang Jinyu [Kangxiera eunuch]; Yong Qingyun); punishment of, 183–185, 281–282n16; Qianlong’s order that they prepare sacrifices, 270n16; role of, 70, 183–184; and Jingshi Fang, 77–78, 80–81 Chiming Clock Bureau (Zimingzhong chu ۞Ꮣ ᤪ๠): establishment of, 267n46; revenue used to support eunuchs, 137 Chinese surnames, 175–176, 177 Chongzhen emperor (r. 1627–1644), 34; abolishment of Jiangnan Weaving Bureau in Suzhou, 251n61; eunuch management of, 35, 76; eunuchs during reign of (see Cao Huachun; Yuan Ben) Christianity: Chinese converts to Catholicism, 98; and role of eunuch Pang Tianshou at Yongli court, 247–248n19. See also Pedrini, Teodorico; Ripa, Matteo chuanzhi ႚ‫“( ڱ‬transmitting orders”): by Kangxi-era eunuchs, 88–93, 106; as term, 88, 89; zizheng (interference in politics) associated with, 88–89 cichu ᢯‫( נ‬resigned), 217 Cining Gong სኑ୰, xxv map 2, 185 Cixi. See Empress Dowager Cixi Classic of Filial Piety (Xiao jing ‫ݕ‬ᆖ), 6; and Confucian education system, 85 Confucianism: anti-eunuch views of Confucian historians, 5–6; Confucian eunuchs (see He Ding; Liu Ruoyu; Tan Ji); and eunuch education, 60, 84–85, 87; and obligations to “govern all-under-heaven with filial piety (yi xiao zhi tianxia ‫ݕא‬ए֚Հ),” 6; and recruitment of eunuchs, 160. See also filial piety; Mencius

303

Court of Imperial Historiography (Nei guoshi yuan փഏ‫׾‬ೃ), 54, 247n15 Crossley, Pamela Kyle, 10, 240n30, 253n2, 264n45 cutting grass: as act of thievery, 120; as punishment, 79, 174, 194–196, 280n81, 280n83 Dale, Melissa S., 223–224, 276n3 Daoguang emperor (r. 1821–1850): case of eunuch using two different surnames, 277n9; description of runaway eunuch, 178; eunuch management by, 235–236; eunuchs active during period of (see Chen Jinchao; Li Dexi; Wang Xi [Daoguang-era eunuch]); prohibitions against loiterers, 284n63 Daoism: The Laozi, 32; serving ruler in accordance with, 40; temples (see Dongyue Miao; Leishen Miao; Qin’an Dian; Shuangguan Di Miao; Tianxian Miao; Xi Da Miao) Dasao chu ‫ؚ‬ൿ๠ (Palace Cleaning Office), 156, 186, 272n56; young eunuchs assigned to, 21, 127, 186. See also spraying and sweeping (sasao) Dasheng Wula ‫ؚ‬੪௻ࢮ, exile of eunuchs to, 196, 219, 220, 280n89, 282n24, 286n84 De’er ᐚࠝ (servant to Ding Da and Yin Ba), 233 dianbing ࠢ܎ (“being in charge of the military”), 55 ding ԭ, 60, 251n74 Ding Da ԭՕ, 232–233 Dinghui Si ࡳᐝ‫ڝ‬: location of, xxiv map 1, 122, 138; steles at, 102 fig 7, 260n80; and Wei Zhu, 101, 273n65 Directorate of Ceremonial (Sili jian ‫׹‬៖጑), 154; eunuch literacy viewed as cause of excesses of, 57. See also eunuchs wielding brush and seals of Department of Ceremonial (Sili bingbi taijian) Dong Liangbi ᇀߜ༘ (supervisory eunuch), 187 Donghua Gate ࣟဎ॰ (eastern gate of Forbidden City): compilation of The Records from the Eastern Gate (Donghua lu ࣟဎᙕ), 247n15; construction of new barracks outside of, 93; location of, xxv map 2 Donglin ࣟࣥ faction, 33–34 Dongyue Miao ࣟࢂᐔ, location of, xxiv map 1, 138 Dorgon ‫ڍ‬ዿ๭ regency, 44; and factional politics of early 1650s, 53; reestablishment of Jiangnan Weaving Bureau in Suzhou, 57 Dou Ming ᤀࣔ (Kangxi-period eunuch), 81–82 Doubar ֣֯ዿ (Wei Zhu’s household member), 118 Dray-Novey, Alison, 190

304

index

Du Xun ‫ޙ‬䊭 (eunuch), 249n29 Duan Cheng ੄‫( ګ‬boy eunuch), 137 dubo chang ᔂ໑໱ (casinos), 225 dudie ৫ᅎ (religious license), 212 Eastern Arch (Dongsi Pailou ࣟ؄ྨᑔ), 225 Eastern Depot (Dong Chang ࣟᐗ), 59, 74, 190 Eastern Han dynasty, 32, 129 “Eight Tigers” Զॡ, 239–240n1 Eight Trigrams (bagua jiao Զ࠳ඒ), uprising of 1813, 160, 235, 287n8 Elliott, Mark C., 275n115, 283n31 Elman, Benjamin A., 37 Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908): called Old Buddha (Lao Foye ‫۔‬۵ᅍ), 19; and drowning of “Pearl Concubine,” 26; eunuchs of (see Li Lianying); rise of eunuchs’ power associated with, 232; Wei Zhu’s sculptural objects collected by, 117; and Xiaodezhang, 21; Yihe Yuan ᙲࡉႼ (New Summer Palace) constructed by, 79 Enji Zhuang ஑ᛎ๗ cemetery: biographies of eunuchs on tombstones at, 12, 19, 139; location of, xxiv map 1, 138; Yongzheng’s establishment of, 138–139 Erge ၠዿ௑ (imperial bodyguard), 90 eunuch burial. See Enji Zhuang cemetery; tombstones of eunuchs eunuch castration. See castration of eunuchs eunuch guards: appearance of, 12, 21, 241n38; archers (jiyong taijian ‫ݾ‬ট֜጑), 16, 167; Chen Fu’s role as imperial guard, 98, 100, 107; fall of Ming attributed to, 48, 75; Jingshi Fang oversight of, 78; at Ming tombs, 265n63; mundane task of guarding doors, 39 eunuch hierarchy: Eunuch of the Imperial Presence (Yuqian taijian ൗছ֜጑), 174; Qianlong-era references to eunuch ranks, 142, 174, 271n43; restriction to fourth rank and below, 56, 75; salaries and ranks as inducements, 139–142; stationing on left, opposite officials of Board of Works, 65; term taijian ֜጑ compared with huanguan ৚ࡴ, 21; Yongzheng’s imposition of eunuch ranks, 140–142. See also chief eunuchs (zongguan taijian); official gowns; supervisory eunuchs (shouling taijian) eunuch identity: biological identifiers, xvii, 10–13, 178, 193, 204; and designation “eunuch,” 20; fluidity of identity between eunuchs and Buddhist monks, 213–214; and

Gang Tie temple, 18; and their specialties, 21, 156–157; unreliability of identifiers, 217. See also eunuch names eunuch literacy: and Confucian education, 84–85, 87; eunuch interference in government associated with, 39–40, 57; of highly literate eunuchs, 155–156, 272n55; lack of yang energy (meiyou yangqi ޲‫ڶ‬ၺ௛) in eunuchs’ writing, 271–272n48; Ming period mismanagement of eunuchs traced to, 57, 106; and nianmao ‫ڣ‬ᎎ (age and appearance) as primary criteria for their selection, 60; Republican period investigation of, 272n54; school at Wanshan Dian, 85, 154; as taboo subject, 155–156. See also eunuchs wielding brush and seals of Department of Ceremonial (Sili bingbi taijian) eunuch management: and reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong compared, 8, 157. See also Daoguang emperor; Kangxi emperor, eunuch management; Office of Eunuch Affairs; Qianlong emperor, eunuch management; Shunzhi emperor; spraying and sweeping (sasao); Yongzheng emperor eunuch marriage: estates awarded to wives of deceased eunuchs, 163; eunuchs married before becoming eunuchs, 163. See also adoption and eunuchs eunuch names: characters distinguished from those of other men and of women, 76; common surnames of, 175–176; second characters associated with go-betweens of, 276n3; status reflected by, 176–177 —changing of, 7; case of Zhao Liuer ᎓քԴ (“Zhao Six”) named as Jiang Jinxi, 176; case of eunuch using two different surnames, 277n9; case of Zhang Yu ്‫( د‬eunuch son Li Chaowang ‫ޕ‬ཛඨ), 276–277n9; and eunuchs surnamed Zhu in Ming, 276n7; by runaway eunuchs, 218 —common names of: as source of empowerment, 7, 233; Hou Jinxi ঀၞ໛, 216; Jinchao ၞཛ (“Entered the Dynasty/Government”), 176; Jinzhong ၞ࢘ (“Entered in Loyalty”), 176, 232; “loyalty” incorporated into names, 175; nicknames used by, 176 —of individual eunuchs. See An Dehai; Cao Huachun; Cao Yi; Chang Hai; Chen Fu; Dou Ming; Gu Wenxing; Li Jinzhong; Li Lianying; Li Yu; Liang Bao; Liang Jiugong; Liu Jin’an; Liu Jinyu; Liu Jishu; Liu Ruoyu; Ma Qiyun;

index Qiu Shilian; Shen Ziming; Shi Xi; Shi Xian; Su Peisheng; Sun Delu; Sun Jinchao; Tong Guan; Wang Jinshan; Wang Jinyu; Wang Xi; Wei Feng; Wei Zhongxian; Wei Zhu; Wu Liangfu; Xiaodezhang; Yan Jun; Yan Yuzhu; Yong Qing; Yuan Ben; Zhang Feng (“Phoenix Zhang”); Zhang Gou’er; Zhang Guoxiang; Zhang Rang eunuch power: lack of documentation of in official sources, 6; low status inside palace and high status outside of, 19–20, 130, 161, 207–210; unnatural disruption of yin and yang associated with, 32. See also flattery; personal gain (zuanying) eunuch retirement: disdain for aged eunuchs, 12; Imperial Ancestral Temple as destination of old eunuchs, 286n82; imperial tombs as destination of old eunuchs, 169, 264n56; princely households as destination of old eunuchs, 13, 168–169 eunuch terms: siren ‫ڝ‬Գ (“temple person”), 213–214; xingyu ٩ᕉ of chou xingyu ᝲ٩ ᕉ (“remains of the bodily punishment”), 49, 146, 249n30 eunuch wealth and savings: business enterprises outside of palace, 230–231; clothing and grooming of, 200, 281n7; of eunuchs at Imperial Wardrobe Vault (Sizhi shi ku ؄ ചࠃ஄), 140, 189, 232–233; financial aid for retired eunuchs, 137–138; income shared with family members, 137, 201, 281n10; lands purchased by Liang Jiugong ඩ԰‫פ‬, 96; and pawnshops, 205–207; and pawnshop case of Dekjimbu ᐚ‫܌‬ၞؒ and De Ren ᐚո, 205–206; phenomenal wealth of Liu Jin Ꮵ ᒀ, 239–240n1; salaries of, 201–202, 281n15, 285n78; suicide of impoverished eunuchs, 204. See also moneylending eunuchs as runaways: beatings by supervisory eunuchs, 186, 278n41; Bei Jinzhong ߦၞ ࢘ (runaway eunuch), 279n71; bounty paid for, 279n71; case of An Dexiang ‫ڜ‬ᐚบ, 219; case of Liu Yu Ꮵ‫د‬, 267n69; case of Ma Dexi ್൓䉫 (or Ma Yulin ್‫)᧵د‬, 197; case of Shi Xi, 11; case of Yan Yuzhu ᙝ‫د‬ ‫׌‬, 277n11; case of Wang Rui ‫׆‬ᅗ, 161; case of Zhang De ്ᐚ, 219; case of Zhang Defu ്ᐚጝ (Qianlong-era runaway eunuch), 178; formulaic confessions of, xvi; language of Buddhism used to help runaway eunuch, 284n53; palace eunuchs entering service of princely households, 218–219; punishment

305

of banner officers when eunuchs ran away from exile, 196; temples as temporary refuge of, 212–213; visiting sick family members as excuse for, 183, 278nn34,46 eunuchs sent on missions: military forces led by Pang Tianshou ᡓ֚ኂ, 247–248n19; military missions, 273n64; and their manipulation of power for personal ends, 38–39; Zheng He’s naval missions, 28, 38, 239n2 eunuchs wielding brush and seals of Department of Ceremonial (Sili bingbi taijian ‫׹‬៖ऺ ࿝֜጑), 30, 60–61, 250n58; official gowns worn by, 61; title bingbi (Wielding the Brush) conferred on, 30, 60–61, 250n58 Fan Hongsi ૃ‫( ℗ؖ‬bannerman), 87 Fan Keduan ૃ‫ױ‬ጤ (Tiger Fan ૃ‫۔‬ॡ, supervisory eunuch), 189 Fan Shiyi ૃழᢂ (bannerman): Sun Qi’s patrolling of imperial tombs, 120; Yongzheng’s rescripting of his memorial regarding Wei Zhu, 119–120 Fan Wencheng ૃ֮࿓, 54 Fan Zhong ૃ࢘ (eunuch at Yong’an Si), 205, 279n60, 282nn23–24 Fang Chaoying ࢪ٢ᄝ, 109, 115 Fanyi Chu ྾‫ݰ‬๠ (Inner Police Bureau), 213, 279n71; bribing of officers, 193; Bujuntong Fanyi, 190; and Qianlong’s system for eunuch management, 174; and runaway eunuchs, 174, 178, 190, 192–193; Shenxing Si’s Fanyi, 190 Fatong Temple ऄຏ‫( ڝ‬Temple of the Perfection of Law), Jingyin Temple constructed on grounds of, 95 feiren ᐒԳ (“disabled men”), 4; “Disabled Scholar” as Liu Ruoyu’s literary name, 84 Feng Jinchao ႑ၞཛ (eunuch and bodyguard of Yūnsy), 111 Feng Yaoren ႑໯ո (one of Kangxi’s eunuchs), 87, 262n1 Fengxian Dian ࡚٣ᄥ: location of, xxv map 2; reconstruction of, 252n100 filial piety: and eunuchs’ severing of links to their families, 19, 162–163. See also Classic of Filial Piety flattery: associated with eunuchs by Mencius, 2, 33, 127; associated with eunuchs by Wang Fuzhi, 33, 127; and dynamics of eunuchs’ usurpation of power, 3–4 food and diets: of eunuchs, 270n31; rice dealers, 270n32

306

index

Forbidden City, older eunuchs working at, 168 Fu Guoxiang ແഏઌ (Yongzheng-era eunuch), 127 Fuciowan ጝ٤, Kangxi’s brother, 135 Galdan ᕺዿկ, 68, 92, 111 gambling: and agency of eunuchs, 223–226, 253n4; case of Liu Jin’an, 183, 224; case of “Phoenix-Eye Zhang,” 225–226; clichéd excuses chosen to conceal wrongdoing, 183, 225; edict by Kangxi on gambling by eunuchs, 69–70; by eunuchs released from household of Hūngšeng, 267n33; playing cards (dou zhipai 䙘౐ྨ), 287n107 Gang Tie ଶᥳ: self-castration of, 18–19; statue of, 18 fig 5 Gang Tie temple ଶᥳᐔ: and eunuch identity, 18; former palace eunuchs at, 15 fig 3 Gao Chaofeng ೏ཛᏕ (supervisory eunuch at the Qin’an Dian), 186 Gao Gui ೏၆ (eunuch in Imperial Tea Office), 204 Gao Jinchao ೏ၞཛ (eunuch to Yūntang/Sishe), 192 Gao Jinyu ೏ၞ‫( د‬supervisory eunuch at Yong’an Si), 282nn23–24 Gao Shiqi ೏Փ࡛, 11, 91 Gao Wen ೏֮ (Gao Gui’s ೏၆ brother), 204 Ge Jinchao ᆼၞཛ (eunuch), 286n99 go-betweens: and characters in eunuchs’ surnames, 276n3; eunuchs used as, 93, 98, 116 Goko, General ࣠ઝ, 58, 65 gongnei ୰փ (“in the palace”), 168, 169 gongsheng ಥ‫( س‬local licentiate), 208 Gu Wenxing ᥽ം۩ (chief eunuch to Kangxi): Buddhism as interest of, 91; supervision of Kangxi’s womenfolk, 89–90, 89; Yongzheng’s posthumous recognition of him, 91 Gu Yanwu ᥽ङࣳ (1613–1682): on distinction between inner and outer, 38–40; on eunuch literacy, 37, 39–40, 57; as one of the three greatest thinkers of his age, 24, 27–28, 37, 228; Record of Knowledge Gained Day by Day (Ri zhi lu ֲवᙕ), 37, 40 guan ࡴ (officials), 61 Guangxu emperor (1875–1908): “Pearl Concubine” of, 26; and similarities between Wei Zhongxian and Li Lianying, 4 Guanyin ᨠଃ: Cixi’s dressing up as, 19; statue commissioned by Wang Hongxu ‫׆‬ពፃ and Gao Shiqi ೏Փ࡛, 91; temple and monastery

established by Gu Wenxing in honor of, 91 guilian ሄ᝷ (kneeling on chains), 225 Guntai 㳢௠ (Brigade Commander), seizure of Wei Zhu’s assets, 122 Guo Bo ພं (Suzhou magistrate), 57–58 Guo Shenxing ພშ۩ (Ming eunuch), 59, 62 Guochao gong shi ഏཛ୰‫׾‬. See A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces haha juse taigiyan শশఇ՗֜጑ (childhood eunuch companion of emperor), 121 Haiwang ௧ඨ (Qianlong-era official), 138, 268n52 Han dynasty: adoption by eunuchs during, 163; Eastern Han dynasty, 32, 129; Empress Hexi, 39; eunuch Lü Qiang ‫ܨ‬ൎ on harms eunuchs posed to political life, 256n7; eunuchs associated with fall of, 32, 129; eunuchs’ distraction of emperor during, 239n6; power of eunuchs during, 54–55; ranks of officials, 39 Hao Hongyou ಸពᅏ (district magistrate of Yanchang County), 49, 249n28 Hao Jie ಸໃ (supervising secretary of Board of Revenue), memorial on hazards of eunuchs, 49, 249n32 Hao Jingui ಸ८၆ (Wanshunhao Oil and Salt Store ᆄႉᇆईᨖᔮ), 204 He Ding ۶ቓ (Confucian eunuch), 84, 85 He Shengrui ၅ฐᅗ (Ming construction manager), and construction of Qianqing Gong, 66–67 He Yuzhu ۶‫د‬ਪ (Kangxi-period eunuch): punishment of, 115, 264n49; and Yūntang’s commercial enterprises, 115; and Yūntang’s sexual gratification, 114–115 Hešen ࡉṚ (chief minister of Imperial Household Department), 12, 13, 145, 169, 170 A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces (Guochao gong shi ഏཛ୰‫)׾‬: depiction of Kangxi’s stern management of eunuchs, 69–70; eunuch cliques attributed to weakness in eunuch chain of command, 80; on eunuchs who came and went from palace, 159; memorial to Qianlong on eunuch gambling, 224; Qianlong’s commissioning of, 8, 240n26; Qianlong’s criticism of Wei Zhu, 148–150; Qianlong’s reputation for being tough on eunuchs, 9, 172, 183, 230, 271n35; on Shunzhi’s management of eunuchs, 229; unified strategy of eunuch management by Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong portrayed

index in, 144; on Yongzheng’s management of eunuchs, 126–127 hong bai shi દ‫( ࠃػ‬money for weddings and funerals), 138 Hong Chengchou ੋࢭᡱ, 54 Hong Taiji ઄֜ᄕ (1592–1643), 44, 55; Qing administrative structure established by, 54 Hongjeo ‫ؖ‬ච (son of Yongzheng), 129–130; grandson, Prince Mianxun, 216; literary name “Scholar of the Ancients” (Jigu ᒝ ‫)ײ‬, 129 Hongwu emperor (r. 1368–1398): eunuchs limited to “spraying and sweeping,” 157; eunuchs restricted to fourth rank and below, 56, 75; Li Guofu’s loyalty to, 39; punishment of eunuchs for discussing palace business, 127; tablet posthumously placed in Temple to Emperors of Successive Dynasties (Lidai diwang miao ᖵ‫ז‬০‫׆‬ᐔ), 75; and Wang Shizhen’s A Study of Eunuchs, 28 Hongxi emperor (r. 1424–1425), eunuchs sent on missions by, 38 Hongyan ‫ؖ‬䑢 (“Yuanming Yuan prince,” 1733–1765): eldest son Yongshu, 285n66; Qianlong’s concern regarding influence of eunuchs on character of, 214 Hongzhi emperor (r. 1487–1505), 84 Household Registration (Baojia অ‫)ظ‬, 210, 213 Hsieh, Andrew. See Xie Zhengguang hu ක (bushel), 152 Hu Liangcheng ઺ߜ‫ګ‬, 209 Hu Yuzhu ઺‫( ׌د‬Yuanming Yuan eunuch), 221–222 Huang Zongxi ႓ࡲᘂ (1610–1695): on eunuchs as “fire under tinder,” xvii; and Lü Liuliang, 36, 245n41; Manchu rule accepted by, 245n41; as one of the three greatest thinkers of his age, 24, 27, 228; revenge of murder of his father, 34; student of (see Wan Sitong); Waiting for the Dawn (Mingyi daifang lu), 37 Hūngšeng ‫( ࣙؖ‬eldest son of Yūnki), 133–134, 267n33 Imperial Ancestral Temple (Tai miao ֜ᐔ), 64, 218, 275n112, 285n77, 286n82; location, xxiv map 1; older eunuchs associated with, 169 Imperial Clan Court (Zongren fu ࡲԳࢌ), 215 Imperial Household Department (Neiwu Fu փ ೭ࢌ), 240n28; and beating death of Wang Xilu, 188; case reports memorialized to emperor, 180; creation of, 77; examination

307

of self-castrations, 170–171; and gambling, 183, 224–226; indifference to identifying and tracking particular eunuchs, 178–179; inspection office (chaguan fang ਷ࡴࢪ), 137; location of, xxv map 2, 77; oversight of palace eunuchs but not princely-household eunuchs, 215–216; payment to princes for sending eunuchs to palace, 216; promotion of eunuchs, 202–203; subordination of eunuchs to bondservants, 77–79; weaknesses of record keeping of, 218. See also Dasao chu ‫ؚ‬ ൿ๠ (Palace Cleaning Office); Office of Eunuch Affairs (Jingshi Fang); Office of Palace Justice (Shenxing Si); Office of Palace Justice (Shenxing Si); Prince Bandi (vice chief minister of Imperial Household Department) Imperial Tea Office (Yu cha fang ൗಁࢪ), 204, 220, 225 Imperial Wardrobe Vault (Sizhi shi ku ؄ചࠃ ஄): annual supplements awarded to eunuchs at, 140, 141; case of eunuch Liu Yi, 189; case of eunuch Yin Ba, 232–233; gambling by eunuchs associated with, 221, 286n96; location of, xxv map 2; “writing characters” eunuch at, 155 interference in government. See zizheng (interference in politics) Jiajing reign (1521–1567), moral deterioration during, 75 Jiang Liangqi ᓏߜ㌙, edition of Records from the Eastern Gate (Donghua lu), 249n32 Jiangnan Weaving Bureau in Suzhou (Jiangnan Suzhou Zhizao Shu ‫ۂ‬তᤕ‫ڠ‬៣ທ ᆟ): Chongzhen emperor’s abolishment of, 251n61; eunuch Che Tianxiang’s authority at, 249; eunuch Lu Jiude’s authority at, 50, 57, 58; reestablishment under Dorgon regency, 57 Jiao Hong ྡྷẐ (neo-Confucian scholar, 1540– 1620), on Confucian-educated eunuchs, 84 Jiaqing emperor (r. 1796–1820; formerly Prince Yongyan ㌔⓭): location of Jingshi Fang during reign of, 77; restrictions placed on eunuchs by, 220, 235, 287n8; theft and pawning of his clothing by eunuch, 207 Jing Shan ན՞ (aka Coal Hill): Chongzhen emperor’s suicide on, 49, 76; confinement of eunuchs on, 167; Liang Jiugong’s suicide on, 97; location of, xxiv map 1, 138 Jingming Yuan ᙩࣔႼ, Xi Da Miao ۫Օᐔ built by Empress Dowager Cixi at, 283n41

308

index

Jingren Gong ནո୰, location of, xxiv map 1 Jingshi Fang ᄃࠃࢪ. See Office of Eunuch Affairs Jingyin Temple ෣‫ڝڂ‬: construction by Li Yu and Liang Jiugong, 93, 95, 158, 272n66, 273n65; location on grounds of Fatong Temple (Temple of the Perfection of Law), 95; Three Great Beings (San da shi) at, 95 Jingyi Yuan 䈌ࡵ㥀 (Villa of Peace and Harmony), 212 jinshi ၞՓ (“advanced student”), xxi; eunuch Chen Fu’s attainment of, 107; Hao Jie’s attaigong bunment of, 49; Xu Yuanwen’s attainment of, 40 Jishen Fang ผళࢪ (Office of Sacrifices), 180 jiyong taijian ‫ݾ‬ট֜጑ (“eunuch archers”), 167; Shen Xiang, 241n38 juren ᜰԳ (“recommended man”), xxi, 41, 49 kaimen ying zei zhi huo ၲ॰०ᇶհጞ (“disaster of opening the gates and welcoming in the thieves”), 49 kang घ (heated sleeping platform), 234 Kangxi emperor: consolidation of Qing rule, 68; equal treatment of Han and Manchu by, 256n11; seclusion of womenfolk, 89, 257–258n29; sons of (see Yongzheng emperor; Yūnceng; Yūnki; Yūnlu; Yūn’o; Yūnsy; Yūntang; Yūnti; Yūntui); stance toward Catholics, and Father Pedrini, 98–100, 260n79 Kangxi emperor, eunuch management, 274– 275n97; eunuchs during reign of (see Chen Fu; Dou Ming; Gu Wenxing; Li Jinzhong; Li Yu; Liang Jiugong; Qian Wencai; Sun Jinchao; Wang Jinyu); on limiting eunuchs to “spraying and sweeping” (sasao), 157; and role eunuchs as advisers, 106, 107, 229; Zha Shenxing on eunuchs at court, 106. See also Office of Eunuch Affairs Kessler, Lawrence D., 257n21 Kou Shen പშ, 36–37 laiwen ࠐ֮ (court letter), 140 laomi ‫( ۏ۔‬stale rice), 152 Leishen miao ሼళᐔ (temple to Thunder God), 210 Lešiheng ೬չ‫ۮ‬, exile of to Xining, 262n4 Li Dexi ‫ޕ‬൓໛ (Daoguang-era eunuch), 236 Li Fuguo ‫ޕ‬᎖ഏ (Tang-dynasty eunuch), 153 Li Guofu ‫ޕ‬ഏ᎖ (eunuch to Yongli emperor), biography in Yongli shilu, 29–30

Li Jinxi ‫ޕ‬ၞ໛(“Entered in Happiness” Li). See Li Lianying Li Jinzhong ‫ޕ‬ၞ࢘ (Kangxi-era eunuch), 76 Li Jinzhong ‫ޕ‬ၞ࢘ (Qianlong-era eunuch), and murder during crab catching incident, 286n98 Li Jinzhong ‫ޕ‬ၞ࢘ (Yongzheng-era eunuch henchman of Yūntang), and extortion of money from Wang Jinghui, 115 Li Jinzhong ‫ޕ‬ၞ࢘, as common eunuch name, 175 Li Kun ‫( ࡗޕ‬Kangxi-era eunuch), 116, 264n56 Li Lianying ‫ޕ‬ຑ૎ (“Joins with Bravery” Li; 1848–1911): biographical details, 6, 240n20; descendants of, xi–xii; literacy of, 156, 272n55; notoriety of, 6–7; pawnshops in Beijing owned by, 205; Wei Zhongxian compared with, 4–5, 239n14 —names of, 176–177; “Combs Li,” 7; feminization of name by Confucian historians, 239–240n19 —service to Cixi, 4, 6–7, 176; and use of “we” (zamen হଚ), 7 Li Lingjie ‫ޕ‬ᨋࣧ (“Alert Hero” Li). See Li Lianying Li Pan ‫( ៾ޕ‬Qianlong-era eunuch), 159, 273n72 Li Peishi ‫ޕ‬ഛᇣ (Qianlong-era eunuch), 189 Li Rui ‫ޕ‬ᅗ (eunuch at Yong’an Si), 186 Li Xingtai ‫ޕ‬ᘋ௠ (one of Kangxi’s eunuchs), 87 Li Yingtai ‫ޕ‬૎௠ (“Brave and Peaceful” Li). See Li Lianying Li Yu ‫( دޕ‬eunuch to Kangxi): authority of to transmit orders for Kangxi, 91–93, 94 fig 6, 106, 262n99; betrayal of Kangxi by, 95–96, 111, 136; as imperial adviser, 106, 107; Jingyin Temple constructed by, 93, 95; and pattern of “evil” Ming eunuchs, 93 Li Yuchuan ‫دޕ‬՟, 201, 267–268n49, 288n17 Li Zicheng ‫ګ۞ޕ‬, 29; eunuchs of, 249n26 Liang Bao ඩঅ, 201 Liang Jiugong ඩ԰‫( פ‬eunuch to Kangxi): authority of to transmit orders for Kangxi, 91, 93; betrayal of Kangxi by, 95–96, 111, 136; house arrest at Changchun Yuan (in Yuanming Yuan), 96; as imperial adviser, 106; Jingyin Temple constructed by, 93, 95, 158, 273n66; and pattern of “evil” Ming eunuchs, 93; suicide on Jing Shan, 97; wealth of, 96–97 Liang Shaojie ඩฯໃ, 268n54 Liang Shicheng ඩ‫ګ׈‬, 129

index Liang Yongrui ඩ‫ة‬ᅗ (eunuch beaten to death by Ma Qiyun), 114, 123 Lin Jinfu ࣥၞጝ (Qianlong-period eunuch, suspected of theft of shirt), 187 Lin Shuangwen ࣥ෯֮ʳRebellion, castration of sons of participants, 169 Liu Fu Ꮵጝ (eunuch from Huimin, Shandong), 208–209 Liu Jin Ꮵᒀ (Zhengde-era eunuch), 146, 154, 239–240n1 Liu Jin’an Ꮵၞ‫( ڜ‬Qianlong-era eunuch), 183, 224 Liu Jinfu Ꮵၞጝ (Qianlong-era eunuch), 203–204 Liu Jinyu Ꮵၞ‫( د‬Qianlong-era runaway eunuch), 178 Liu Jinzhong Ꮵၞ࢘ (Qianlong chief eunuch), 175 Liu Jishu Ꮵࡱ૪ (notorious Tang-dynasty eunuch), 129 Liu Ruoyu Ꮵૉჟ (Confucian eunuch), 84–85 Liu Yu Ꮵ‫( د‬eunuch working in Memorial Transmission Office), 256n7 Liu Zhigang Ꮵ‫ݳ‬ଶ, 75–76, 87 Liushiwu քԼն (unemployed bannerman), 205, 279n60 Longqing emperor (r. 1567–1572), 28 Lu Jiude ᗝ԰ᐚ (Shunzhi-era eunuch), 50, 57, 58 Lü Liuliang ‫ܨ‬ఎߜ, and Huang Zongxi, 36, 245n41 Lu Tianshou ᗝ෌ኂ, 61 Ma Qiyun ್ದሎ (Yünsy’s head eunuch), 114, 123, accomplices of (Dase ሒ‫ۥ‬, Changshou ൄኂ, and Cuner ‫)ࠝژ‬, 263n38 Macartney, George, 281n6 Maci ್Ꮨ (Kangxi-period official), 81, 255n58 Madame Ke ড় (wet nurse of Tianqi emperor), 4, 42 maimai jie ၇ᔄဩ (“shopping street”), 23, 167 Maleji ຾೬‫( ٳ‬Shunzhi official), 48 Mamboo የঅ (governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang), 131 Manchu and eunuch relations, 23; case of Dekjimbu ᐚ‫܌‬ၞؒ and eunuch De Ren ᐚո, 206, 283n31; case of Fuxing ጝᘋ and eunuch Zhang Yu ്‫د‬, 80; case of eunuch Lu Jiude and General Goko, 58; case of Liang Jiugong and Cao Yin, 93, 259n54; case of construction of Qianqing Gong, 66–67; and confessions of eunuch Zhang Yu ് ‫د‬, 80; eunuchs as slaves to Solon Battalion at Heilongjiang, 170, 196, 205; hierarchy of Shunzhi’s “inner palace,” 65; Kangxi’s subordination of eunuchs to bondservants, 77–79;

309

and Manzhou jinchen (eunuchs and Manchu officials of inner circle), 55; and prohibition against eunuchs from becoming seal-holding officials in Thirteen Yamen, 55–56, 64; and Wang Jinshan’s memorials, 59–60. See also Thirteen Yamen Manchu and Han relations: and education of eunuchs in Manchu language, 155–156; Kangxi emperor’s equal treatment of, 256n11 Manchu bannermen: Fuxing ጝᘋ, 80; General Goko (member of Bordered White Banner), 58, 65; interrogation of, 279n63; martial vigor and discipline of, 269n6; Šangji (Dorgon regency Manchu official), 57; Solons, 275n115; Sonin, 66, 252–253n11; sula Liushiwu, 205, 279n60 Manchu bondservants: Deboo ᐚঅ, 100; subordination of eunuchs to, 77–79 Manchu terms and titles: baitanga ചࠃԳ (ਈାॳ), 23; sula amban ཋ఼Օ‫( ۝‬unemployed Manchu banner personnel), 22–23, 179. See also bithesi (clerks) Manduhū 䴃ຟᥨ (nephew of Kangxi), 110–111; beile (princely status) of, 115, 262n12 Mann, Albert, 157 Mao Yigong ֻԫֆ, A Study of Eunuchs through the Ages (Lidai neishi kao), 27–28 Maoqin Dian ᚬႧᄥ, location of, xxv map 2 Masanori, Kōsaka, 121 McMorran, Ian, 30 Memorial Transmission Office, 155, 256n7 Mencius (Meng zi ࡯՗): and association of flattery with eunuchs, 2, 33, 127; An Dehai’s knowledge of writings of, 272n55; and Confucian education system, 84–85; on unfiliality of not having offspring, 6 Meng Guoxiang ࡯ഏบ (runaway eunuch), 212–213 Meng Sen ࡯ཤ, 109; on eunuch empowerment during Shunzhi period, 46–47, 59, 247n9; on Shunzhi’s death, 247n16 Ming Taizu. See Hongwu emperor Ming tombs, eunuchs as guards of, 265n63 Mingju ࣔఇ (Kangxi-era court official), 90, 258n31 Ming-period emperors. See Chongzhen emperor; Hongwu emperor; Jiajing reign; Longqing emperor; Taichang emperor; Tianqi emperor; Wanli emperor; Xuande emperor; Yongle emperor; Yongli emperor; Zhengde emperor; Zhengtong emperor

310

index

Ming-period eunuchs: abuse of authority via chuanzhi ႚ‫“( ڱ‬transmitting orders),” 88–89; as advisers to Kangxi, 88, 257n21; excesses of, 44–45, 154; fall of Ming attributed to, 48, 75; as guards of tombs of Ming emperors, 266n56; Liu Zhigang’s criticism of, 75–76, 87, 254n27, 256n15; roles of, 106; stone tablets for temple grounds, 15, 18, 90; and temple patronage, 90–91. See also Wei Zhongxian moneylending, 203–204, 236; punishment for, 282n24 Mongols, 44; Esen, 73; eunuchs and, 22; Galdan, 68, 92, 111 names. See Chinese surnames; eunuch names Nan Yuan ত૒ imperial park. See Wudian Naquin, Susan, 15, 158, 273n66 nei da ban փՕఄ (“inner managers”), 190 neiwei փ໮ (“within the perimeter”), 168 Neiwu Fu փ೭ࢌ. See Imperial Household Department Nengqing ౨ॹ (Qianlong-era monk), 170 nianmao ‫ڣ‬ᎎ (age and appearance), 60 numbers of eunuchs. See accounting of eunuch numbers Nurhaci ‫ܘ‬ዿশߧ (1559–1626): eunuchs used by, 55, 250n56; and Qing conquest, 44; and Tuhai, 252n105; and Zhaolian, 179 Oboi 㛌ਈ (regent to Kangxi emperor, c. 1610–1669), 47, 68, 77 Office of Eunuch Affairs (Jingshi Fang ᄃࠃࢪ): chief eunuchs and bondservants working together at, 80–81; description of, 255n47; and eunuch literacy in Qing, 272n52; functions of, 77–78; Kangxi’s naming of, 77; location of, xxv map 2, 77; and punishment of eunuchs, 78; case of eunuch Zhang Yu ്‫د‬, 80; ranks of eunuchs at, 77, 140 Office of Imperial Inscriptions (Yushuchu ൗ஼ ๠), 93 Office of Palace Justice (Shenxing Si შ٩‫)׹‬: described by Qing official Zhaolian, 179–180; formulaic nature of confessions, 180–182; location of, xxiv map 1; physical descriptions of eunuchs in documents, 177–178; punishment of eunuchs, 78, 79, 173–174; and Yongzheng’s Fanyi Chu, 190, 197 Office of Palace Justice (Shunzhi-era Directorate of Imperial Manufacturies, Shangfang Yuan ࡸֱೃ or Shenxing Si შ٩‫)׹‬: and case of

Wang Jinshan, 61; as forerunner of Shenxing Si, 179; staffing by eunuchs, 252n87 Office of the Court of Personnel (Sili Yuan‫ٴ׹‬ ೃ), 59, 271n45 offices. See Qing offices; Thirteen Yamen (Shisan Yamen) official gowns worn by eunuchs: sancai Կ թ (“three powers”) worn by seal-holding eunuchs, 61; tianlu ‫( ຼض‬fallow deer) worn by brush-wielding eunuchs, 61 Olondoi ၠ଩ࢁ, 111–112 Ortai ၠዿ௠ (E’ertai) (1680–1745), 240n26; and case of De Ren ᐚո, 206 Ouyang Xiu ᑛၺଥ, on danger posed by eunuchs, 3 Oxnam, Robert B., 53, 246n6 Palace Cleaning Office (Dasao chu ‫ؚ‬ൿ๠), 156, 186, 272n56; young eunuchs assigned to, 21, 127, 186. See also spraying and sweeping (sasao) Pang Tianshou ᡓ֚ኂ (Yongli court eunuch), 247–248n19 Parisot, Pierre-Curel, 260n75, 261n89 Pedrini, Teodorico, C. M. (Italian missionary), 98–100, 260n79 personal gain (zuanying ᨵᛜ): and Cao Huachuan’s betrayal of Chongzhen, 48; and dispatching of eunuchs on imperial commissions, 38–39; and high status of eunuchs outside of palace, 19–20, 130, 161, 207–210, 283n48; of palace eunuchs living on outside, 130–132; and posting of eunuchs at imperial tombs, 117–118; Yongzheng’s edict on, 127. See also flattery Peterson, Willard J., 37 Prince Bandi ఄ૭ (vice chief minister of Imperial Household Department), 90, 93 Prince He ࡉᘣ‫׆‬, 151, 209 Prince Heng Gong ਁֆ, 218 Prince Jirgalang ᛎዿশி, 53 Prince of Gui ெ‫׆‬. See Yongli emperor Prince Zhuang ๗ᘣ‫׆‬. See Yūnlu (sixteenth son of Kangxi) princely-household eunuchs: accounting of numbers of, 215–217, 271n43; case of eunuch surnamed Dou ᤀ, 142; case of Zhang Chaofeng, 220; case of Zhou Xiang (eunuch in household of Prince Li), 233–234, 285n285; covering up of serious wrongdoing in, 215; eunuchs living outside of princely households, 234, 287n6; gambling by eunuchs released from household of Hūngšeng, 267n33;

index old eunuchs sent to, 13, 168; recruitment into palace service, 220–221; service at Imperial Ancestral Temple, 286n82 princes: junwang ಷ‫( ׆‬commandery princes), 286n90; Prince Jirgalang, 53; Prince Naersu ๹ዿᤕ, 93; Prince Yongshu (grandson of Yongzheng), 284–285n66; qinwang ᘣ‫׆‬ (prince of first rank), 130, 286n90; sons of Kangxi (see Yūnceng; Yūnki; Yūnlu; Yūn’o; Yūnsy; Yūntang; Yūnti; Yūntui); titles and other awards bestowed on, 214. See also beile (princely status); Manduhū (nephew of Kangxi); Prince Bandi; Prince He; Prince Heng Gong; Yungiong (chief minister of imperial household) Provincial Officials Record Book (Daofu jizai ሐ ࢌಖሉ), 155, 199 punishment: beating death of Liang Yongrui, 114, 123; beating death of Wang Xilu, 188; beating death of Zhao Jinzhong, 164; case of Qian Wencai (Kangxi-period eunuch), 71, 76; case of Zhang Yu ്‫( د‬Kangxi-period eunuch), 80–82; castration inflicted upon prisoners of war or criminals, 40; Kangxi’s imprisonment of eunuchs in Jingshi Fang, 78; permanently cutting grass as, 79, 174, 194–196, 280nn81,83, 285n68; and Qianlong’s system of eunuch management, 173–175, 194, 197–198; removal of beile ߦ೬ (princely status) as, 115, 262n12, 264n45; of supervisory eunuchs, 188; tattooing, 178, 199, 277n16; of Teodorico Pedrini, 98–100, 260n79. See also Board of Punishments (Xing bu) punishment of eunuchs by sending them into exile, 109, 196–197, 282n24; case of Yifei’s eunuchs, 134; and Heilongjiang, 115, 161, 196, 205, 280n89; Weng Shan as place for eunuch exile, 79, 166–167, 174, 194–195, 280n83 Qian Wencai ᙒ֮թ (Kangxi-period eunuch), murder of commoner Xu Er, 71, 76 Qianlong emperor: imperially sponsored palace history (see A History of Our Dynasty’s Palaces); Siku quanshu (Four Treasuries) literary project sponsored by, 167, 243n2; as Yongzheng’s son, Hongli ‫ؖ‬ᖟ, 128–129. See also Provincial Officials Record Book (Daofu jizai) Qianlong emperor, eunuch management: annual census of eunuchs (1747–1806), 166–167, 168 fig 9, 172, 275nn100,102; eunuchs during

311

reign of (see Cao Yi; Chen Fu; Li Pan, Liu Jin’an; Liu Jinyu; Su Peisheng; Zhang Feng; Zhang Gou’er; Zhang Guoxiang; Zhang Xi); eunuchs not served by, 236; and eunuch’s salaries, 202, 281n15; lenient day-to-day control, xvii, 198, 230–231; myth of direct control, 9, 171–172, 183, 230, 271n35; policies to increase number of eunuchs, 145, 169–170; rigid regulation attributed to, 240n28; shortage of eunuchs during reign of, 198; young eunuchs preferred by, 13, 168–169, 204. See also Fanyi Chu (Inner Police Bureau); territorialism Qianqing Gong ೓෎୰ (Palace of Heavenly Purity): construction of, 62–66; destruction of, 252n93; location of, xxv map 2 Qianqing Gong Yamen ೓෎୰ᇒ॰, 63 Qin and Han dynasties: adoption by eunuchs during, 163; power of eunuchs during, 54–55 Qin’an Dian ཱུ‫ڜ‬ᄥ (Daoist temple), 186 Qing ministries. See Board of Personnel (Li Bu); Board of Punishments (Xing Bu); Board of Revenue (Hu Bu); Board of Rites (Li Bu); Board of War (Bing Bu); Board of Works (Gong Bu) Qing offices. See censors and Censorate; Chiming Clock Bureau (Zimingzhong chu); Dasao chu (Palace Cleaning Office); Fanyi Chu (Inner Police Bureau); Imperial Household Department (Neiwu Fu); Imperial Tea Office (Yu cha fang); Imperial Wardrobe Vault (Sizhi shi ku); Memorial Transmission Office; Office of Eunuch Affairs (Jingshi Fang); Office of Palace Justice (Shenxing Si); Office of Palace Justice (Shunzhi-era Directorate of Imperial Manufacturies); Writing Characters Office (Xiezi chu). See also Thirteen Yamen; Three Inner Courts Qing Shengzu ෎ᆣల. See Kangxi emperor Qing shi gao ෎‫׾‬ᒚ (Draft History of the Qing), 58 Qing-period rulers. See Daoguang emperor; Empress Dowager Cixi; Guangxu emperor; Jiaqing emperor; Kangxi emperor; Qianlong emperor; Shunzhi emperor; Xuande emperor; Yongzheng emperor Qiu Shiliang ռՓߜ (Tang-dynasty eunuch), 129, 146 Rawski, Evelyn S., 10, 98, 214, 260n74, 270n31 Rebellion of the Three Feudatories (San fan zhi luan Կᢋհ႖), 68

312

index

Recollections of Old Eunuchs (Lao taijian de huiyi), 117 The Records from the Eastern Gate (Donghua lu): compilation by official at State History Office, 247n15; editions of, 249n32; on Shunzhi’s management of eunuchs, 47 recruitment of eunuchs: negative factors, 160; and self-castration, 170; sons of rebels and murderers becoming eunuchs, 169–170 Reed, Bradly W., 10 Rehe ᑷࣾ: Bishu Shanzhuang ᝩཔ՞๗ (imperial summer villa) at, 96, 110, 167; Guntai’s seizure of Wei Zhu’s assets at, 122 restrictions on eunuchs: and Eight Trigrams uprising of 1813, 160, 235, 287n8; and potential recruits, 160, 198; return-at-night proviso, 160 Rid the Palace of Dust Day: eunuch participation in, 156; palace holiday of jing chen ri ෣ ቺֲand popular festival of sao chen ri ൿቺ ֲ, 272n57 Ripa, Matteo, 237n78; on Father Pedrini, 99–100, 260n79; on Kangxi’s seclusion of womenfolk, 257–258n29; on number of eunuchs at Kangxi’s court, 274–275n97; rumors of sexual abuse circulated about, 105, 261n96; on Wei Zhu as chief negotiator, 104–105, 261nn89, 94 Rituals of Zhou (Zhou li ࡌ៖), number of eunuchs prescribed by, 71, 164 runaways. See eunuchs as runaways sasao. See spraying and sweeping shangqian ᓾᙒ (tips), 203 Shen Ziming ާʳ۞ʳࣔ (Yongzheng-era eunuch), 141, 142 shengyuan ‫س‬୉ (“student member” or “licentiate”), xxi shengzhen dengfei ᢃᄙ࿛၄ (“rope and wood fee”), 282n20 Shenxing Si შ٩‫׹‬. See Office of Palace Justice Shenyang: eunuchs working in, 49, 249n26, 250n56. See also Dasheng Wula Shi Xian ‫( ᧩ف‬eunuch), 129 Shiwu Shanshe Լն࿳୴ (school for Manchu archers), 206 Shuangguan Di Miao ᠨᣂ০ᐔ, 188 Shunzhi emperor: and eunuch empowerment, 45–46; eunuchs during reign of (see Wang Jinshan; Wang Xi [Chongzhen- and Shunzhi-era official]; Wu Liangfu; Zhang Zhicong; Zhou Jinzhong); Hao

Jie’s memorial, 49; Meng Sen on, 46–47, 59, 247n9; and Oboi, 47, 68, 77; suggestion to adopt Ming court attire rejected by, 250n37. See also Thirteen Yamen Sizhi shi ku ؄ചࠃ஄. See Imperial Wardrobe Vault smallpox: samples collected for variolation, 38, 207; Shunzhi’s succumbing to, 44, 247n16 Sommer, Matthew H., 10, 278n30 Song dynasty: eunuchs’ usurpation of power during, 146, 269n11; and poetry in education of eunuchs, 85; ranks and title awarded to eunuchs by Wudi, 153 Song Jinzhong ‫ݚ‬ၞ࢘ (eunuch), 286n99 Songgotu ౉ᠰቹ, 111, 263n16 Spence, Jonathan D., 90, 256n11 spraying and sweeping (sasao ᦠൿ): as standard language for limiting eunuch activities in palace, 39, 54, 156–157, 249n32. See also Palace Cleaning Office State History Office. See Court of Imperial Historiography Stent, G. C., 12, 13, 192, 223, 253n4 Su Jincheng ᤕၞ‫( ګ‬recidivist eunuch), 277n11 Su Peisheng ᤕഛฐ (chief eunuch to Yongzheng and Qianlong), 150–152, 176, 218 Šuhede င᎒ᐚ (Manchu official), 191 Sui dynasty, eunuch literacy, 39–40 Sun Delu ୪൓ᆂ (Yuanming Yuan eunuch), 183 Sun Jinchao ୪ၞཛ (Kangxi-era eunuch), 139 Sun Qi ୪ದ (subordinate of Fan Shiyi), 120 supervisory eunuchs (shouling taijian ଈᏆ֜ ጑), 79–80; case of eunuch Liu Yi, 189; intimate knowledge of eunuchs in their charge, 179; permission to live outside palace, 222, 286n96; power and brutality of, 80–82, 185–189; Qianlong’s dissatisfaction with preparation of sacrifices by, 270n16; sick or dying eunuchs sent home by, 188, 279n53 sweeping. See spraying and sweeping (sasao) Taichang emperor (r. 1620), 255n35 Taihe Dian ֜ࡉᄥ, location of, xxv map 2 taijian ֜጑ (“eunuch”): compared with huanguan৚ࡴ, 21; used by Wang Jinshan, 251n71 Tan Ji ိ‫( ٳ‬Confucian eunuch), 84 Tang dynasty (618–907): adoption of sons by eunuchs during, 163; eunuch Gao Lishi’s influence during, 146; eunuch Zhang Chengye’s loyalty, 129–130; Kangxi on Tang eunuchs, 71, 111; Li Fuguo, 153; limitation of eunuchs

index to fourth rank, 142; role of eunuchs in fall of, 38, 129; Tang Taizong’s ା֜ࡲ limitations on power and number of eunuchs, 38; Wang Fuzhi on Tang eunuchs, 32 Tang Guotai ାഏ௠ (Qianlong-era eunuch living in Jilin), 196 Tang Xuanzong ା‫( ࡲخ‬r. 712–756), eunuchs overseeing palace women for, 38 Tang Yinian ାఛ‫ڣ‬, 128, 272n52 Tang Zhen ାጉ (1630–1704), Covert Writings (Qian shu ᑨ஼), 41–42 tanting dao ൶ᦫࠩ (“managed to learn”), 117 tattoos, 178, 199, 277n16 Temple of Heaven ֚ᕽ, location of, xxiv map 1, 138 temple-building projects, eunuchs’ roles in, 158 territorialism: conflict between groups of eunuchs at Yuanming Yuan, 223, 286n98; duty stations of eunuchs revealed by gambling cases, 224; and Qianlong’s eunuch management system, 221, 226 Thirteen Yamen (Shisan Yamen ԼԿᇒʳʳ॰): abolition of, 47, 68, 77, 229; formulation of, 24, 45–47, 53–55, 58, 140, 229; and power of seal-holding officials over eunuch subordinates, 55–56; prohibition against eunuchs from becoming seal-holding officials in, 55–56, 64; Qianqing Gong Yamen as first of, 63; viewed as guanyuan (officials) by Wang Jinshan, 60. See also Bells and Drums Office (Zhonggu Si); Bujuntong Yamen; Directorate of Ceremonial (Sili jian); Office of the Court of Personnel (Sili Yuan) “three greatest thinkers.” See Gu Yanwu; Huang Zongxi; Wang Fuzhi Three Inner Courts (Nei san yuan փԿೃ): Court for the Advancement of Literature (Nei hongwen yuan փ‫֮ؖ‬ೃ), 54; Court of Imperial Historiography (Nei guoshi yuan փഏ‫׾‬ೃ), 54; Court of the Secretariat (Nei mishu yuan փఽ஼ೃ), 54 Tianqi emperor (r. 1620–1627), 34, 88, 89; Madame Ke ড় (wet nurse of), 4, 42; powerful eunuch during reign of (see Wei Zhongxian) Tianshun reign. See Zhengtong emperor Tianxian Miao ֚‫ט‬ᐔ, 212 titles: bestowed on princes, 214; civil examination levels (see jinshi; juren; shengyuan). See also eunuch hierarchy; Manchu terms and titles

313

tombstones of eunuchs: Chen Fu’s, 98; “Old Buddha” (Lao Foye) found on inscriptions, 19; Sun Jinchao’s, 139; Su Peisheng’s, 150; Wang Cheng’en’s grave, 248n26 Tong Guan ࿙຃ (Song-dynasty eunuch), 129 Tongyi ᬄᆠ (Manchu official), 47, 65, 252n105 Torbert, Preston M., 247n9, 249n32 “transmitting orders.” See chuanzhi Tu Lien-che ‫ޙ‬ᜤ㹝, 33–34, 72, 254n13 Tuhai ቹ௧ (Shunzhi-era justice minister), 52, 65–66, 252nn105,109 Tulai ቹᘸ, 63 Tumu incident Ւֵհ᧢, 73, 238n1, 256n2 wai da ban ؆Օఄ (“outer managers”), 190 waishi ؆ࠃ (“outer affairs”), 3 waiwei ؆໮ (“outside the perimeter”), 168, 170 Wakeman, Frederic E., 247n11, 249n26 Wall of Sravasti (Shewei Cheng ॐᓡৄ, Yuanming Yuan Indian Buddhist Temple), Zhanran Shi ྈྥ৛ (Indian temple) located in, 222 Wan Sitong ᆄཎ‫( ٵ‬1638–1702): loyalty to Ming, 72, 86, 254n13; Ming History edited by, 72–74; poems dealing with eunuchs, 73 Wang Cheng’en ‫ࢭ׆‬஑ (Chongzhen-era eunuch), 48, 87, 248n22 Wang De ‫׆‬ᐚ (eunuch accused by Luo Sigui), 181 Wang Deyong ‫׆‬൓ট (assumed name of eunuch brother of Zhang Chengquan ്‫ګ‬٤), 123, 276–277n9 Wang Er ‫׆‬Բ (Qianlong-era monk), 170 Wang Fu ‫׆‬ጝ (Wei Zhu’s household members), 118 Wang Fuzhi ‫֛׆‬հ (1619–1692): background of, 29, 30; commentary of Book of Changes, 30–31; eunuchs described in his Veritable Records of the Yongli Reign (Yongli shilu), 29–33, 162; as one of the three greatest thinkers of his age, 24, 27, 228 Wang Hongxu ‫׆‬ពፃ, 91, 92 Wang Jinshan ‫׆‬ၞ࿳: Directorate of Ceremonial headed by, 59, 251n76; on eunuchs working in Shenyang, 250n56; and status of court eunuchs, 59–62; terms used to refer to officials and eunuchs, 60–61, 251n71 Wang Jinxi ‫׆‬ၞ໛ (Qianlong-era eunuch whose shirt was stolen), 187 Wang Jinxi ‫׆‬ၞ໛ (Qianlong-era eunuch at palace puppet-theater school), 234–235

314

index

Wang Jinyu ‫׆‬ၞ‫( د‬Kangxi-era eunuch), titles of Chengdelang and Wenlinlang conferred on, 139, 257n26 Wang Jinyu ‫׆‬ၞ‫( د‬Qianlong-era eunuch), 234–235, 257n26 Wang Kun ‫( ࡗ׆‬eunuch to Yongli emperor), biography of in Yongli shilu, 30 Wang Qingyun ‫׆‬ᐜႆ, on Kangxi’s plan to limit eunuch power, 78 Wang Xi ‫׆‬ዺ (Chongzhen- and Shunzhi-era official), 247n16, 248n22; commemoration of Wang Cheng’en, 248n22 Wang Xi ‫׆‬໛ (Daoguang-era eunuch), 217 Wang Xianqian, ed., Donghua lu, 249n32 Wang Xilu ‫׆‬໛ᙕ (Yuanming Yuan eunuch), 188 Wang Yansou ‫( ଼᧏׆‬eleventh-century scholar), 165 Wang Zhen ‫׆‬஡ (Ming eunuch): adopted son Wang You, 73; ancestral temple established by, 39; and Tumu incident, 73, 238n1, 256n2 Wang Zhonghan ‫׆‬᝻ᘃ, 109 Wanli emperor (1572–1620): Confucian eunuch Liu Ruoyu Ꮵૉჟ, 84–85; corruption during reign of, 75; and eunuchs and officials in Qianlong’s court, 70; letter of grievance written by He Shengrui to, 67 Wanshan Dian ᆄ࿳ᄥ (“Temple of Myriad Blessings”): location of, xxiv map 1, 138; school for eunuchs at, 85, 154 Wanxing Pawnshop ᆄᘋࠢᅝ, 206 Weaving Bureau. See Jiangnan Weaving Bureau in Suzhou Wei and Jin period, education of eunuchs and court maids during, 39 Wei Chao ᠿཛ (eunuch rival of Wei Zhongxian for the affection of Madame Ke), 42 Wei Feng ᠿ᠆ (Yongzheng-era eunuch), 131 Wei Jinzhong ᠿၞ࢘ (eunuch at Promotion of Virtue Hall, Hongde Dian ‫ؖ‬ᐚᄥ), 159 Wei Zhongxian ᠿ࢘ᔃ: censor Yang Lian’s ᄘ ዮ denunciations of, 33–34; and emperor Tianqi, 34, 89; Li Lianying compared with, 4–5, 239n14; named “old partner” laobanr ‫۔‬ ۴ by Tianqi, 88; usurpation of power, 4–5; Wan Sitong on, 73 Wei Zhu ᠿఇ: bribery of, 105–106; and Dinghui Si, 101, 273n65; hand-crafted objects created by, 117, 147, 265n62; house arrest in Tuancheng ቸৄ, xxiv map 1, 117, 118 fig 8, 121–122; house near Kangxi’s grave, 233;

as imperial adviser, 106; Kangxi’s order regarding Kunqu ࣒‫( ڴ‬Ming-style opera) transmitted by, 102–103, 260–261n85; seizure of assets of, 122–123; and visit of Count Leoff Ismailoff, 101, 104–105, 260n84, 261n94, 261nn94–95; Yongzheng’s rescripting of Fan Shiyi’s memorial to him, 119–120 weimin taijian ੡‫֜ا‬጑ (eunuchs who returned to commoner status), 225, 234, 242n56 Weng Shan ៍՞: eunuchs permanently cutting grass at, 79, 174, 194–195, 280n83, 280n83; location of, xxiv map 1, 138; naming of, 255n52; Yongzheng’s banishment of eunuchs to, 227 Weng Tonghe ౖ‫ٵ‬㛧, 4 Wenyuan Ge ֮ෘᎹ: library built by Qianlong, 167; location of, xxv map 2 White Temple (Bai miao ‫ػ‬ᐔ), 225 wielding the brush: association with yin and yang, 154; official gowns worn by brushwielding eunuchs, 61. See also eunuch literacy woduan longpao ଦᒶᚊ๲ (dragon’s robes), 50 women: education of court maids by King Fujian during Wei and Jin period, 39; Empress Zhang, 153; eunuch literacy first allowed by Empress Hexi, 39; eunuchs as “earrings” for female members of imperial household, 12; eunuchs as guards over, 35; Kangxi emperor’s seclusion of, 89, 257–258n29; Tang Zhen’s proposal to use women in place of eunuchs, 41; yin (feminine energy) shared with eunuchs, 3–4, 32. See also Empress Dowager Cixi; Madame Ke; Yang Guifei; Yifei; Zhen Fei Woodside, Alexander, 8 Writing Characters Office (Xiezi chu ᐊ‫ڗ‬๠), 155, 272n52 Wu, Silas H. L., 93, 109, 115, 260n81 Wu Cunli ‫ژܦ‬៖ (governor of Jiangxi), 120–121 Wu Gate ֑॰, location of, xxv map 2 Wu Ji ‫( ֗ܦ‬1013–1062), criticism of self-castration, 40 Wu Jinchao ‫ܦ‬ၞཛ (eunuch in Yūnceng’s household), 110–111 Wu Liangfu ‫ߜܦ‬᎖ (Shunzi-period eunuch), 45, 46, 61, 67, 68; powerful and usurping authority of, 45–47, 59, 229, 247nn10–11 Wu Sangui ‫ܦ‬Կெ, General, 51 Wu Sirui ‫ܦ‬৸ᅗ, 220 Wu Zongxian ‫( ᧩ࡲܦ‬Qing eunuch), 278n32 Wudian ‫( ߋܦ‬in Nan Yuan imperial park), as place for eunuch exile, 174, 285n285

index Wuhua Temple (Wuhua si ढဎ‫)ڝ‬, 211 wuniao si qing ௻຺ߏൣ (“the solicitude of the crow”—as expression of filial sentiment), 60 Wuying Dian ࣳ૎ᄥ (Hall of Military Cultivation), 161, 260n75; location of, xxv map 2 Xi Da Miao ۫Օᐔ (in Jingming Yuan), 207–208, 283n41 Xia and Shang dynasties, eunuchs not used in, 54 Xiao Jingtian ᘕན࿿ (Suzhou resident), 57–58 Xiaodezhang ՛ᐚ് (Qing eunuch-actor), 21 xiaozhong xiaoxin ՛࢘՛ॾ (“small instances of loyalty”), 55 xie en li ᝔஑៖ (pay ritual thanks to emperor), 61 Xie Zhengguang ᝔‫إ‬٠ (Andrew Hsieh), 48, 248n22 Xihua Gate ۫ဎ॰, xxv map 2, 179, 180, 181, 189 Xin Xiuming ॾଥࣔ, 270n32 Xu Chaoxiang ஊཛบ (Qianlong-era eunuch), 203 Xu Yuanwen ஊց֮ (nephew of Gu Yanwu), 40 Xuande emperor (r. 1425–1435): corruption of eunuchs sent on missions, 38; school for eunuchs established by, 75, 106; Zha Shenxing on evils of eunuchs during reign of, 106 Xuanzong reign. See Tang Xuanzong; Xuande emperor Yalanga ႁிॳ (?–1794), 234 Yan Jun ⍼ঊ (aka Yan Jin ⍼ၞ, Yūnsy’s trusted eunuch), 113–114 Yan Yuzhu ᙝ‫( ׌د‬runaway eunuch), 277n11 yang ၺ (masculine energy): associated with effective rule, 3; and Wang Fuzhi’s reading of Book of Changes, 30–31; and wielding the brush, 154 Yang Guifei ᄘ၆‫ڒ‬, 38 Yang Guozhen ᄘഏᄙ (Kangxi-era eunuch guard), 265n63 Yang Zhen ᄘੴ, 109–110, 114 Yangxin Dian ᕆ֨ᄥ (Hall of Mental Cultivation): heir apparent’s name placed in sealed box in, 128; Wang Jinyu as chief eunuch of, 139 Yao Zixiao ৔՗‫( ݕ‬Kangxi-period eunuch), 115 yaofang ᢐࢪ (pharmacy), 181 Yaoting ᎟ॼ, 111, 112 yapai ‫( ྨ׃‬ivory tiles), 50, 249n31 yi er ᆠࠝ (adopting of sons). See adoption and eunuchs

315

Yifei ࡵ‫( ڒ‬Yongzheng’s mother), 134 Yihe Yuan ᙲࡉႼ, location of, xxiv map 1, 138 yin ອ (feminine energy): attributed to lateQing emperors, 3, 9; shared by eunuchs and women, 3–4, 8, 32; and Wang Fuzhi’s reading of Book of Changes, 30–31; and wielding the brush, 154 Yin Ba ձԶ (aka Yin Jinzhong ձၞ࢘, Qianlong-era eunuch), 232–233 yinyou ֧ᎈ (lured), 109 Yong Qing ‫ة‬ᐜ (chief eunuch), 281–282n281 Yong’an Si ‫( ڝڜة‬Buddhist temple in Beihai), 166, 186, 205, 278n41, 282n23 Yongle emperor (r. 1402–1424): criticized for giving eunuchs greater influence, 157; eunuch admiral Zheng He, 28, 38, 239n2; eunuch Gang Tie, 18–19; eunuch Li Jin, 38 Yongli emperor ‫ة‬ᖟ (r. 1646–1661; Prince of Gui): eunuchs of (see Li Guofu; Wang Kun); and Pang Tianshou, 247–248n19 Yongzheng emperor (r. 1723–1735): banishment of Yūntang and household to Xining, 109, 115, 262n4; Enji Zhuang cemetery established by, 138–139; eunuchs during time of (see Chen Fu; Fu Guoxiang; Shen Ziming; Su Peisheng; Wei Feng; Wei Zhu); harsh treatment of eunuch lying, 136; limitation of ranks of eunuchs, 126; prohibition against bannermen becoming eunuchs, 242n61; punishment of eunuchs for discussing palace business, 125–127; and recording of heir apparent’s name, 128; and role of eunuchs, 117–124, 229–230; salaries and ranks as inducements, 125, 139–142; sons of (see Hongjeo; Qianlong emperor); succession of, 108–110 Yü, Ying-shih ‫܇‬૎ழ, 36, 242–243n1, 245n41 Yu Minzhong Պඕխʳʻ1672–1755): Guochao gong shi compiled by, 8, 240n26 Yuan Ben ց‫( ء‬Chongzhen-era eunuch), 76 Yuan Shikai ಒ‫້׈‬, 239n3 Yuanming Yuan ႽࣔႼ: location of, xxiv map 1, 138; meetings at Changchun Yuan within, 258–259n50; Nanchuan Wu at, 286n99; as “outside the perimeter,” 170; Wufu Tang of, 207; Zhanran Shi (Indian temple) located in Wall of Sravasti (Indian Buddhist Temple) at, 222. See also Changchun Yuan at Yuanming Yuan Yuanming Yuan eunuchs: and ferrying of imperial family between buildings, 285n81; flour

316

index

Yuanming Yuan eunuchs (continued) purchased by eunuchs from grain store near, 281n5; gardener-eunuchs at, 21, 236; guarding of entrance to garden palace, 287n8; individual eunuchs associated with (see Hu Yuzhu; Song Jinzhong; Sun Delu; Wang Jinyu [Kangxi-era eunuch]; Wang Xilu; Zhang Gou’er); management of, 286n94; and murder during crab catching incident, 223, 286n98; numbers of, 167; Qianlong’s preference for young eunuchs, 168–169; restaurants serving eunuchs outside gates of, 281n5; and self-castration, 170; sons of murderers and rebels, 169–170 Yūnceng ւ᮰ (second son of Kangxi and sometime heir apparent): crimes of, 92; eunuchs in household of (see Wu Jinchao; Zhou Jinchao); Songgotu (granduncle), 111, 263n16; Hongxi (son), 159 Yungiong ‫( ⨅ة‬chief minister of imperial household), 281–282n16 Yūnki ւᆁ (fifth son of Kangxi), 134 Yūnlu ւ㼪 (sixteenth son of Kangxi; Prince Zhuang; 1695–1767): Fan Zhong and Chen Xuesheng accused of usury by, 205; policy on runaway eunuchs, 218–219; as Qianlong’s household manager, 148, 218, 224 Yūn’o ւ䄉 (tenth son of Kangxi): and eunuch Zhang De, 219; and son Hungjeng, 148 Yūnsy ւ䏄 (first son of Kangxi): Acina (“cur”) as name, 113–114; death in prison of, 114; eunuchs of (see Chang Hai; Li Yu; Liang Jiugong; Ma Qiyun; Yan Jun); Li Yu’s collusion with, 96, 111 Yūntang ւ䋁 (ninth son of Kangxi): eunuchs of (see Gao Jinchao; He Yuzhu; Yao Zixiao); exile to Xining, 109, 115, 262n4; notes exchanged with brother Yūntui, 264n43; offering of son for adoption to Wei Zhu, 121; Sishe (“pig”) as name, 114, 149; wealth of, 109, 115 Yūnti ւ䛯 (fourteenth son of Kangxi), 108, 135, 267n38 Yūntui ւ➹ (twelfth son of Kangxi), notes exchanged with brother Yūntang, 264n43 yuqian xingzou ൗʳʳছ۩ߨ (“attaché to the emperor’s suite”), 107 Yushu Fang ൗ஼ࢪ (Imperial Library), 213 Yushuchu. See Office of Imperial Inscriptions zamen (“we” হଚ): in “joint confessions” in case reports, 182; used by Li Lianying, 7 Zha Shenxing ਷შ۩ (1650–1727), A Record of

the Human Sea (Ren hai ji Գ௧ಖ.) by, 106 Zhang Chengquan ്‫ګ‬٤ (Wei Zhu’s household manager), 122–123, 276–277n9 Zhang Chengye ്‫ګ‬ᄐ (Tang-dynasty eunuch), 129–130 Zhang Er ്Բ (De’er and Ding Da’s neighbor), 233 Zhang Feng ്Ꮥ (“Phoenix Zhang,” Qianlongera eunuch), 277n10 Zhang Gou’er ്दࠝ (Qianlong-era Yuanming Yuan eunuch), 170 Zhang Gouyu ്ഏ‫د‬, Red Rope Brigade of ᓡ દᢃ, 120 Zhang Guotai ്ഏ௠ or ്ഏ֜ (as illustration of same eunuch’s name being written differently in palace records), 177, 219 Zhang Guotai ്ഏ௠ (eunuch sent for retraining), 272n56 Zhang Guoxiang ്ഏઌ (Qianlong-era eunuch), 208 Zhang Qiyong ്ದ‫( ش‬Yifei’s chief eunuch), 134 Zhang Rang ്ᨃ (eunuch), and fall of Eastern Han, 129 Zhang Ruoying ്ૉᡡ (local police chief), 211–212 Zhang Tongxi ്‫ٵ‬ዺ, 115 Zhang Xi ്Ꮥณ (“Phoenix-Eye Zhang,” Qianlong era eunuch), 225–226 Zhang Yixian ്䬭ᖆ (Chongzhen-era eunuch), 35 Zhang Yu ്‫( د‬eunuch son of Li Chaowang ‫ޕ‬ ཛඨ), 276–277n9 Zhang Yu ്‫( د‬Kangxi-period eunuch), 80–82 Zhang Zhicong ്‫ݳ‬ᜣ (Shunzhi-era eunuch), 57 Zhangyi Gate ኦᏚ॰ (aka Guang’an Gate ᐖ‫ڜ‬ ॰), 48 Zhao Chang ᎓࣑ (official in Office of Imperial Inscriptions), 93, 259n67 Zhao Gang ᎓ଶ, 245nn47–48 Zhao Gao ᎓೏ (Qin-era eunuch), 129, 146, 163 Zhao Guotai ᎓ഏ௠ (eunuch from Dacheng County), 210 Zhao Jinzhong ᎓ၞ࢘ (Qianlong-era chief eunuch), 175 Zhao Jinzhong ᎓ၞ࢘ (Qianlong-era guard eunuch), 164 Zhao Liangzi ᎓ߜ՗ (commoner from Dacheng County), 210 Zhao Si ᎓ʳʳ؄ (employee of Haiyun granary), 235 Zhaoren Dian ਟոᄥ, 286n99

index Zhen Fei ੴ‫“( ڒ‬Pearl Concubine”), 26 Zhengde emperor (r. 1505–1521), 146; usurpation of power by eunuch Liu Jin, 146, 154, 239–240n1 Zheng He ᔤࡉ (Ming eunuch admiral), 28, 38, 239n2 Zheng Tianting ᔤ֚஧, on Qianlong’s depiction of Shunzhi’s limitations on eunuch power, 247n7 Zheng Zhaolin ᔤ٢᧵ (eunuch at Qin’an Dian), 186 Zhengguo Temple ဳʳʳ࣠‫ڝ‬, 236 Zhengtong emperor (r. 1435–1449): eunuchs used as judicial surveillance commissioners by, 146–147; eunuch Wang Zhen’s usurping of power, 73; Tianshun reign of (1457–1464), 84, 256n5 Zhengyang Gate ‫إ‬ၺ॰, 64, 234

317

Zhou Da ࡌՕ (worker in imperial household), 216 Zhou dynasty, 54. See also Rituals of Zhou Zhou Jinchao ࡌၞཛ (eunuch in Yūnceng’s household), 110 Zhou Jinzhong (Shunzhi-era eunuch), 52–53 Zhou Xiang ࡌบ (eunuch in household of Prince Li), 233–234, 285n285 zhuchu ດ‫( נ‬expelled), 217 Zimingzhong Chu. See Chiming Clock Bureau zizheng ‫ݖ‬ਙ (interference in politics): chuanzhi “transmitting orders” associated with, 89; and eunuch literacy, 39, 106; by eunuchs sent on military missions, 38–39; of Mingperiod eunuchs, 44–45; punishment of, 89, 126–127 zuanying ᨵᛜ. See personal gain zun ju jiu wu ༇ࡺ԰ն (absolute power), 113